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Malaysia Doubles Airliner Search Area; Reports Of Massive Explosion In Manhattan

Aired March 12, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, anger, outrage, and a sea of frustration.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Malaysians have not been fully cooperative.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have done nothing right so far. They seem to have dropped the ball.

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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 --

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

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COSTELLO: Trying to connect the dots and clear the clouds of confusion over Flight 370. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We begin this hour with the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Few clues and a puzzling level of confusion. After spending five days searching the area beneath the intended path of the Beijing-bound flight, Malaysian's military now says it may have radically changed course popping up as a blip on radar more than an hour later hundreds of miles away. That means the search doubles today.

A development so baffling, Vietnam is scaling back search efforts until Malaysia gets it act together. Reporters aren't getting clear answers either.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are getting increasing criticism. You are searching east. You are searching west. You don't seem to know what you have seen on radar and it has taken you until five days later. HISHAMMUDDIN BIN HUSSEIN, MALAYSIAN DEFENSE MINISTER: That's not true.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is utter confusion now.

HUSSEIN: I don't think so. It is far from it. It is only confusion if you want to be seen to be confusion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know where you need to search?

HUSSEIN: Yes, in this two areas.

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COSTELLO: How desperate have things become? Well, a shaman or witch doctor said one Malaysian leader enlisted this spiritual ceremony to uncover any clues. He wasn't able to help either. No one seems to be able to help Malaysia's beleaguered government.

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REPRESENTATIVE PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: They have dropped the ball at every level. It appears they have basically done nothing right so far. Even if the Navy was told about it yesterday, that's 48 hours after the fact. To me every minute counts here. That was such a key point if the plane was reversing course and was flying back over Malaysia. I mean, why wasn't that made known? Why wasn't an alert put out on that immediately?

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COSTELLO: Good questions. The families of those missing want answers, but they are not getting any anywhere. They are not getting any answers. They are growing more and more frustrated. David McKenzie is in Beijing. I know you have talked to some of those families. What are they telling you?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, they will are telling us that they are holding out on hope even though that has dimmed some five days after the planes vanished over Vietnam air space. These families are desperate and the frustration and anger is boiling over.

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MCKENZIE (voice-over): The hours turn 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. Meeting with airlines officials are tense, at times angry. Hundreds of family members want answers. There are few to give. They cling to hope.

PAUL YIN, GRIEF COUNSELOR: It is not the final closure. Any ray of hope, however remote or improbable, many of these people will still hold on to it.

MCKENZIE: Airline officials have pledged to send close family members to the stage area in Malaysia. Few of them want to go until the plane is found.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I'm not going home until I know what happened. We have lost loved once. 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.

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COSTELLO: All right, David McKenzie with that report. Apparently, we are going right to the breaking news. This is our affiliate WABC, out of New York City. There has been an explosion at a building at 116th in Park Avenue. That's in East Harlem residents had reported hearing this large explosion in an apartment building around 9:00 Eastern. Fire was reported in the building.

The structural integrity as you can see was definitely compromised in this building. It is also affecting trains going in and out of Grand Central Station especially those headed from Grand Central Station to Connecticut so expect delays there. We don't know what caused this yet.

Investigators are just arriving at the scene. Firefighters are trying to get things under control. Poppy Harlow is on the way to Harlem right now. When she arrives on the scene, of course, we will provide much more information for you.

We are going back to the plane investigation, Malaysia Flight 370. We want to talk a little bit about the investigation because it seems so chaotic. Our Nic Robertson is in London and Robert Baer is our national security analyst. He is in Irvine, California. Welcome to both of you.

Nic, I want to start with you because it is unclear who exactly is in charge of this investigation. Is it the Malaysian military or is it civilian authorities?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It seems to me the civilian authorities. Certainly when you look at the press conference, there was the air force chief, the army chief, the minister of transport, the civil aviation chief and the CEO of Malaysia Airlines. It was the transport minister who was leading it. The military men standing there in uniform, I have to say, looked somewhat trite.

At the moment, there are obviously questions marks about potentially why didn't they react to an unidentified aircraft flying back across the country and also questions on have they been able to interpret the data. They say that they have. That they believe it is the data of the aircraft making that turn and coming back across Malaysia and the issue it basically disappears off the radar.

Nobody knows at the moment how far it has gone. It does seem the civil authorities who are in charge. We also heard the chief of the air force kind of walking back what he had reportedly sent to journalists the day before. Kind of an indication he was getting a wrap over the knuckles there.

COSTELLO: Robert, it seems as if the military ought to be able to answer some of these questions, especially as far as if the plane really did make that turn. Now, they are walking back on it. But it seems some people are leaking information that is incorrect. Then, they are walking back on it 12 hours later.

ROBERT BAER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Carol, I don't think they know what they saw on that radar. It could have been another aircraft. The military in Malaysia probably wasn't tracking a civilian flight. Their information is unreliable. I think what the problem is there is just no debris field. If the plane had simply catastrophic problem on the plane and went down or there was a terrorist attack, there should have been a debris field in the ocean.

We can speculate all we want. It almost looks now like this thing went down over land. Maybe it did make a turn. I think to the question of terrorism, as John Brennan said yesterday, the CIA director, we can't rule it out. A potential hijacking as well. Someone got in there and turned the transponder off right away. We don't know. It remains a mystery.

COSTELLO: I understand that Malaysian officials have called on the NTSB to help. How much of a role will the NTSB have in this investigation, do you think?

ROBERTSON: And the FAA, we understand as well. I think the hope of the Malaysians appears to be that by drawing in more international experts that they may be able to interpret the data that they have. Did this aircraft really make a U-turn? It disappeared off the civil aviation radar and assumed that it was this plane or believed to be it was this plane picked up on the military radar. Someone has to drill down and interpret the data.

That would be very sensitive for the military in any country. Offer up some information and say to some civilian agencies, come and interpret this for us. The sensitivities are there. The expertise appears to be what they need. The transport minister was saying, he welcomed the addition of these countries. One of the perhaps key indicators here of the confusion is that they are search in two seas, but also now that Indian has joined this --

COSTELLO: I think we lost Nic Robertson. Thanks so much. We got the gist of your conversation. Nic Robertson, Robert Baer, thanks so much.

I want to get back to that breaking news out of New York City. There are multiple reports of a building explosion. There was some sort of explosion in the East Harlem section of Manhattan, around 116th and Park Avenue. Traffic between the 125th Metro North Station and Grand Central Station has been stopped. Information, as you might expect, is trickling in. This from WABC, our affiliate in New York City. We understand there has been at least one injury, but that injury is minor. Police called a level two mobilization for crowd control. Con Edison is also responding to shut off the gas in this area. These are Twitter pictures also coming into us. You see the smoke rising from that building at 116th and Park Avenue.

We understand Metro North, as I've said before, has elevated tracks through that area. The New Haven line service into and out of Grand Central terminal is temporarily suspended until further notice due to this police activity. And of course, many, many firefighters are now on the scene getting a grip on what happened.

I don't know whether this was an apartment building under construction. Whether there were people inside the apartment building. We just don't have much information as of yet. One of our producers, Adam Reiss, is on the scene right now. Do we have him on the phone yet? He is seconds away.

Apparently, Poppy Harlow is also on her way to the scene. You can see this thick, black smoke pouring from the building. Very disturbing pictures. Adam, you on the phone now?

ADAM REISS, CNN PRODUCER (via telephone): Hello.

COSTELLO: Hello, Adam. Describe the scene for us.

REISS: There are a number of firefighters here. I'm at 116th between Madison and Park. They are still making their way into the explosion. All buildings devastated, windows blown out. They have at least three or four hook and ladders up at the scene. Can I ask you what the latest is for their lives?

Many cars covered in soot, cars with blown-out windows, doors with blown-out windows. We haven't seen this kind of smoke in a fire here in New York City in a very long time. Certain parts of the area are thinning out. Heavy smoke still covers at least a three-block radius here. That's about what I can tell you now. Most emergency personnel all have masks on because the smoke is so heavy.

People are being evacuated from all neighboring buildings. They are still making their way into the explosion, the building where the explosion took place. I can't really tell due to the smoke exactly how much damage that particular building suffered. A lot of emergency personnel. Fire personnel putting out fires.

A lot of damage on the street. Blown-out car windows, blown-out store windows and very heavy smoke coming from the building. The fire department is still trying to get under control.

COSTELLO: I probably have a better picture of the building than you do because you are probably not able to get very close. Police are obviously cordoning the scene. But it appears that it involves one building? Are you hearing it might involve other buildings as well, Adam? REISS: It's pretty focus and again very heavy smoke is still coming out of the building, very, very heavy smoke is what I can tell you from here. At least four fire engines with their ladders going into the building. They are being blocked by the heavy smoke. It's really can't tell what's causing such heavy smoke. All emergency personnel wearing masks here. Very heavy smoke.

They are knocking out glass windows in stores and a lot of glass windows in some of the residents here as they evacuate all the residents and people that work in the stores along this street, along 116th between Madison and Park.

COSTELLO: Adam, this building where the explosion took place, was it occupied?

REISS: I can't really tell because of the heavy and dark smoke, you can't tell what type of a building it was. I can't tell from my vantage point.

COSTELLO: WABC is reporting it was an apartment building. Poppy Harlow is also on the phone. Poppy, are you with me?

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Carol, I'm with you. Can you hear me?

COSTELLO: I can hear you. What are you seeing?

HARLOW: I'm on 116th and Madison between Madison and Park, which is the block where firefighters are fighting this right now. I just spoke with a firefighter that told me it was multiple buildings, confirming, multiple buildings. We do not know more than that how many. We do not know if they were residential, how many people were inside of them.

As Adam was just saying to our viewers, I have lived in New York City for 11 years. I haven't seen smoke like this anywhere in this area. We are east of Columbia University. We are in East Harlem, 116th Street and East Harlem. We are told that this explosion happened somewhere around 9:30 Eastern Time.

Coming up here, listening to local news reports, witness accounts on the radio here, one woman called from Frederick Douglass Boulevard, which is about two to three avenues, which are long, long blocks from where I am. She said she heard the explosion this morning. So that gives you a sense of the magnitude, how big this was.

Also, one of the main train lines out of New York City, called the Metro North, that runs right in this area. We would track it above ground. Another person also called in for the local news saying there was debris on the tracks. Just to give you the sense of the magnitude.

I tried to walk up to the building and got about half a block away and was turned away by the police. As Adam said, everyone is wearing masks right now. Extremely heavy smoke. So much so that when I got even a block away, I was coughing. That's the scene. Are people seeing aerial pictures of this yet?

COSTELLO: We are. We have an aerial picture courtesy of WABC. We see a large hole in the middle of this large building on 116th. I can't tell whether the apartment building is occupied. Maybe they were evacuated. Maybe it was under construction. I don't know and don't want to speculation. WABC is reporting one minor injury. There could be more. It could be a gas line. It could be something else. Is anyone talking about that yet on the scene -- Poppy?

HARLOW: They are not yet. But we literally just arrived. No comment right now. We are obviously making more calls. The fire department. I will take a minute and talk to some people on the street. There are shoppers and residents, all wondering what's happening. There are well over a dozen ambulances and fire trucks. What I am not seeing at this point, Carol, though, is any stretchers, any carrying anyone that may have been injured out.

I am not seeing that at this time. That doesn't mean that hasn't happened. I am telling you, we are not seeing that from our vantage point at 116th and Madison and East Harlem.

COSTELLO: Do I still have Adam on the line? I have Adam on the line. Poppy, you go ask people questions and I will get back to you in a second. I'll let you do your job for just a second. We just heard from FDNY. Fire officials. There were 11 minor injuries. Poppy reported multiple buildings are involved in this. Some kind of explosion happened at 116th and Park Avenue in East Harlem. What more have you been able to find out, Adam?

REISS: Nothing more. Some of this smoke does seem to be clearing on the streets. We still see heavy smoke coming from the roof or whatever was left from that building. I see some EMS units pulling out. Like poppy said, we haven't seen since we arrived any people coming out on stretchers. We see numerous ambulances, sitting there waiting for potential injuries.

Thus far, from what we have got here, we don't see any. To repeat, heavy smoke still emanating from that building at 116th, between Madison and Park. Numerous fire personnel at the scene trying to make their way inside. I see a fireman making room to provide more water to the scene.

As the wind shifts, the smoke is shifting. Right now, the wind is shifting to the west and we're seeing more smoke coming our way. More emergency personnel arriving. A lot of people talking about what they saw, what they heard. A very loud explosion that rocked the neighborhood. Poppy is talking to a few of them now.

They didn't know what it was. Just trying to get a sense of how soon they can put whatever fire that is still emanating from that building out and the smoke will clear.

COSTELLO: They are pouring lots and lots of water. They are up on ladders right now, Adam. I have a different vantage point than you do with this live, aerial picture. You can see the firefighters pouring water in what was this building. They are on the roof of the building next door it appears. They are sort of checking things out right now. They are pouring a lot of water on the building. You mentioned before a lot of car windows blown out nearby. Describe the surrounding scene to us.

REISS: A lot of glass all over the street here. The smoke is somewhat toxic. That's why you see a lot of the emergency personnel, fire department personnel. Several cars with glass blown out. I'm not sure exactly why that glass was blown out. It could potentially be from what appears to be a very large explosion as described by a lot of the residents here.

I'm still trying to locate someone who can tell us what's going on exactly at the scene. The firefighters still there on three or four hook and ladders getting into that building. We are watching the fire department captain here opening up the hydrant for more and more water to get to the scene.

COSTELLO: All right, just to recap, some sort of explosion has occurred in East Harlem, in that building you are looking at right there. Poppy Harlow reports, multiple buildings are involved. Multiple buildings are damaged. The FDNY told us there are 11 minor injuries so far. There could be more. This is all taking place at 116th between Park and Madison in East Harlem.

I am going to turn things over now to my colleague, Chris Cuomo. He will take over from here. Take it away, Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thank you, Carol. We are going to monitor the situation carefully. Let's give you a reset if you're just joining CNN right now. You are looking at a live picture of Manhattan from our affiliate, WABC. In our partner in this story, it has been going on for half an hour.

Here's what we understand. This was the site of two buildings, contiguous buildings, meaning that they joined with one wall. There is believed to be a major explosion in at least one of the buildings. Firehouses from around that area, at least four houses are involved, at least four. Firefighters say they have the situation under control. What is that situation?

You see the obvious smoke. They are saying right now that a lot of the smoke is coming from their efforts to put out what seems to have been an explosion. There is a debris field that goes on elevated railroad tracks. The Metro North tracks there, service has been suspended. There are firefighters on top of the building on each side. Why? Because they want to make sure there is no damage of fire and continued burning that winds up contaminating or spreading to those buildings.

The two buildings involved are pre-war, meaning they date before the 1940s. Older buildings, generally oil burning buildings. That could be a clue. There is not much more of a pattern to go on beyond that. However, these two buildings that were joined are called multiple use buildings.

On the storefront level, at 116th street and Park Avenue, you will see these two buildings. On the bottom, one was a Spanish-Christian church. The other was a piano repair shop. On top of each were four or five levels of apartments, usually somewhere between 2-4 apartments per floor.

That is fueling the immediate concerns about injuries. So far, there are two surrounding hospitals who are expecting casualties. The numbers right now are low. But firefighters are saying there are casualties. Control room, do we have a fire official on?

We have Tom Van Essen, who is the former commissioner of the NYFD. Commissioner, can you hear me? It is Chris Cuomo in New York.

TOM VON ESSEN, FORMER FDNY COMMISSIONER (via telephone): Yes, Chris. I can.

CUOMO: Now my understanding from the brothers on the street is that they have it basically under control. It is multiple houses responding. Do you have any fresher information?

ESSEN: You can see how difficult it is for them as that smoke gets lighter. That part of the fire is out. Some of the other stuff, the darker stuff, is really nasty smoke. It looks like it is pretty toxic. They are having trouble getting that part of the fire out. They want to get in there as quick as they can. The people in there now will be seriously injured if they are.

Hopefully, none of them are caught in the immediate explosion. They want to get the folks out of there. It will kill them if the explosion didn't. It is a tough job. Hard to get in there with all that debris. It looks like it has collapsed. Quite a few apartments above the ground floor. An awful lot of debris to get in there underneath.

CUOMO: Now we are in a major trafficked area here. This is 116th, 116th and Park Avenue. Highly trafficked. The elevated railroad adjacent to it. These are contiguous buildings, kind of mother and daughter situation with a joint wall. Commissioner, store fronts on the bottom, multiple stories above pre-war buildings. What is the expectation judging by the smoke, the explosion and the level of collapse about what the possibilities of cause are here?

ESSEN: Well, right away, you think it is gas, because it is just such a violent explosion. You see that the debris everywhere is probably where the minor injuries came from in the beginning. Anybody that was caught in the blast directly has probably got a lot worse than a minor injury. There are folks that are reporting the collapse. You can only hope they have enough air and oxygen to breath. They are not too close to the fire, which is pretty significant. It looks like the fire and parts of the building are getting worse. Probably because the water was just not getting down to it.

CUOMO: That's an important factor. When you have a collapse and something is burning underneath it, the assumption, common sense, would tell you maybe it gets smothered. Often, that is not the case. That's something we learned very horribly in 9/11. Can you explain that to us? ESSEN: Yes, we sure did. You know, you can't keep thinking the water is getting to it. The water has the tendency to go in the easiest direction. If there is something that makes it run away or a big part of plywood or something like that blocking you from getting at the fire, that just builds up in intensity down there and it is getting hotter and hotter. Anybody close to it, smoke is coming in that direction. They are in real trouble.

That's what the firefighters know that right now. You can bet from everything you see, you can bet that this guy is trying to get in from the back, the side. Park Avenue is very narrow there because of the railroad. You know they are coming in the back, digging in through the basement. There are probably guys underneath that right now taking enormous risk trying to find people where the water is coming on.

CUOMO: It's an important, Commissioner, I got a quick message from one of the guys responding in the air. He said, you will see they are all up in the air. They have to stay a little bit of distance from it because of the nature of the smoke and also the heat. Obviously, heat rising and it much be incredibly hot for the guys in the buckets.

Park Avenue, which is one of the boulevards that we have here in Manhattan, two lanes at least on each of traffic is choked off because of metro north. They couldn't get directly in front of the building. How long can they stay in those buckets dealing with that kind of smoke and that kind of heat? How often do they have to swap out?

ESSEN: Well, the guys in the buckets are all fine. Those guys will stay there as long as it is necessary. The more water they put on there, the more difficult it is for the people that need to get in there. There are rescue units, special operation units, trying to work their way in, taking a certain amount of risk, because they believe there might be people in there.

You have to weigh the amount of risk based on the opportunity you might have to save people. If it is too late in some spots, you have to think about the risk you are putting your firefighters in. All of that debris is all in there. You don't know how many boys are underneath, what the water is doing pushing things out of the way. It is really dangerous right now.

CUOMO: They are understanding there is no advance warning of this. There is an expectation that people are trapped. There was evidence on the street level that guys were getting there. There may be people in distress. There is no further reporting about that. There is an unknown issue of how deep down the building did go as you are pointing out.

What the basement structure of these buildings and the stability of that debris is. Now something you can explain for us. We are seeing a lot of ladders. We know there is heavy response. We hear that a fourth alarm was just called for. Will you explain what that means to firefighters? How much response does that mean? How serious does that make it?