Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Plane Search Widens To 27,000 Square Miles; Obama, Ukraine's Prime Minister Meet On Crisis; Ukrainian Soldier Points Gun At Russian; Two Dead In NYC Blast And Building Collapse

Aired March 12, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Just past the bottom of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN. You know what? It's tough to find a jetliner when you don't know where to look. The search area for this Malaysia Airlines plane has now suddenly doubled to 27,000 square miles and right now there are a few leads to help shrink that. In fact, the more we learn, the more puzzling this disappearance becomes.

We have just learned Malaysia police are right now questioning the friend of those Iranian nationals who boarded that plane with those stolen passports although important to mention here we have been told that the investigation into these two focused on human trafficking and not any links to terrorism on this plane.

Malaysia police have also been searching the home of the pilot as we learned a troubling new piece of information. The last words heard from the crew of the plane were already, all right, good night. That's according to "Straight Times" newspaper. Although I talked to a pilot minute ago and he said that's par for the course. That should not be alarming.

After spending five and now on to the sixth day searching this area beneath the intended path of the Beijing-bound flight. Malaysia's military now said it may have to radically change the course and popping up as you watch this trajectory. Popping up as a blip of the radar more than an hour later hundreds of miles away. A dramatic change of course over the Malacca Straits.

Malaysian authorities seemingly overwhelmed by this new piece of information so they are asking U.S. experts to help analyse their radar information. And there is tremendous confusion about the plane's final path, adding to the grief for the families of the 239 people who are on board that flight.

Let's go to Washington, D.C. to our colleague here, Tom Foreman. Tom, I mean, they don't know where to look for this plane. Tell me about the search area that has suddenly now doubled.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, for the family and friends of these people out there wherever they may be, this trend is going absolutely in the wrong direction. You want to see the search narrowing and not getting wider. This is what we know. Plane took off, flew up here at 1:30 in the morning and all transponding stopped and now we are getting this morass of information that conflicts and said other things.

For example, there is this notion from the military that this plane turned. A lot of people seem to think it turned, but it's not clear why. Here you have what's called a reflection, a radar reflection. Why did they say a reflection? They say a reflection because if the transponder is working on the plane, the radar queries it in a sense and it responds. We are the Malaysian Air flight.

But when that's turned off, all the radar can say is there is something out there. If there is something out here, the question is why would radar get a reflection here but not in many, many other steps along the way? We don't have an answer as to why there are various people in various locales saying they saw something and it's all over the place. All over the place.

All these different reports. As a result what you are getting is this, the search areas have gone crazy. The search are were originally up in here in a fairly limited zone. Now it's over here in the straight. Here's the difficulty of that, Brooke. You have to portion your resources as you can. Yes, there dozens of planes and ships from a dozen countries helping to search.

But look what they have to do. In each case, what they are going to do is grid off the search areas and a block at a time, they have to go over the areas. Whether they are using infrared or visual to search for any debris from this plane, they have to do this. Right now, the area they are searching if it's 27,000 square miles and I've heard some reports as high as 40,000 square miles, that's still about a quarter of the search area for Air France after it went down on the way from South America.

It took two years to find that plane. They had debris within the first couple of days. They knew where that plane went down. This is just terrible news for the families and friends. And frankly anybody in the aviation community who wants to know what happened here because the real indication of all of this is not the magnitude of effort, it is the magnitude of confusion that they have no idea where it is.

BALDWIN: We are about to talk to a guy who is helping to lead the team on that Air France flight. This is baffling to him. Tom Foreman, thank you so much. Part of that discussion involves how do you search the bottom of the sea for this? My next guest, as I mentioned, was part of that search team that, you know, two years later they figured out what went wrong with the Paris-Rio flight. So he will join me next.

Also ahead, CNN crews took some pretty stunning video of this tense standoff between Ukrainian and Russian soldiers. The guns are drawn and saw fingers on the trigger. So far no shots fired.

Also in a matter of minutes in Washington, President Obama will be sitting down with Ukraine's interim prime minister. We are live in Crimea. We are live at the White House next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Let me quote the man we are about to talk to. Right now, it's like a murder mystery with no body. This is what my next has said about this 777 disappearance. Let me bring in David Gallo. He's a special projects director at Woods Hall Oceanography Institution.

David, welcome to you. You have such a unique perspective because you helped co-lead that investigation that Air France Flight 447 a couple of years ago. We will get into those details in a minute, but first just on this search. We know it suddenly doubled in size, which is much bigger than it was the day before, but you say the search area is not big enough, right?

DAVID GALLO, WOODS HALL OCEANOGRAPHY INSTITUTE: I think it's growing every day. You can't leave any more stones unturned. This is a horrible predicament.

BALDWIN: David, do we have you?

GALLO: I'm here.

BALDWIN: I thought I lost of you. You are saying maybe it's too big. How about the possibility that this plane did not land in the water?

GALLO: The fact that we had to go on with the last known position. Other than that there is not a shred of evidence that that plane landed on the water. For what we do, we need to search to have that x marks the spot of where that plane impacted the water if in fact it did. There is no such information right now.

BALDWIN: This search area is five times the size of the search area you and your team were dealing with Air France Flight 447. Help us not in the aviation industry and not in this investigation area, help us understand what exactly they are doing right now.

GALLO: I'm on the outside like you are looking in. I can only wonder. We had a chat this morning, some of my colleagues that were involved with Air France wondering what we would do in this position and you have to start with the basics and try to get all of this extraneous stuff out of the way. It's a tough one. You are looking for the tiny bits of a needle, the black boxes in a very large haystack.

If you are in the wrong haystack, no matter how good you are, no matter what instruments you got, you are not going to find the aircraft. You really have to find out where the search area is and limit it down as much as possible. This is one of the most perplexing situations I have ever seen and a horrible station to be in.

BALDWIN: How would you narrow down the search area? I mean, you pointed out so far there is no debris. There is cushions, you know, pieces of seat or pieces of mangled metal. How do they know where to look?

GALLO: Right now you can't. I mean, the only thing that narrows down area is the amount of fuel in that plane right now. It's that big really when you think about it. Normally the way we would narrow is down would be to find some bits of the plane floating on the surface of the ocean and then you use the scientists, physical oceanographers to back track that as it moves with wind and currents. That gives you the rough location of the center of the haystack. But in this case, there is no such evidence. So it's a tough one. It's open ended.

BALDWIN: How tense do you think this command center is for these Malaysia Airlines folks right now?

GALLO: You know, it has to be horrible. I have been there. When I hear the minister of transportation from Malaysia, I think the guy is speaking from his heart saying, you know, they are going to do whatever it takes to get this solved and he reaches out and understands the agony that those families and friends are going through. So what I can say is that having been there, the kind of criticism that I hear right now --

BALDWIN: There is a lot of it.

GALLO: Yes, it's easy to do, but it's not helpful. When you are inside that circle, it's probably a lot of sleepless nights and questioning inside whether they are doing the right thing and did they miss something. So that kind of criticism is not helpful. What they need now is confidence and a little bit of support to do what they -- you know, they are the only ones that know what's going on. When he said we are trying to get this solved, I believe the guy.

BALDWIN: You believe it. You know those sleepless nights I'm sure. Having investigated the Air France flight. David, thank you so much.

We will take you back to that mystery, but we want also to take you overseas because CNN cameras have caught tense moments between Ukrainian and Russian soldiers in Crimea. All of this happening as across the waters in Washington, President Obama will be sitting down with Ukraine's interim prime minister. We will take you to the White House in Crimea.

And we will take you live to New York where two people are dead and two dozens are injured and many are unaccounted for after these two buildings collapsed after the explosion this morning in East Harlem.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Diplomacy is shifting into high gear over the crisis in Ukraine. We have now learned Senator John McCain and seven other U.S. senators will be traveling to Eastern Ukraine this weekend and then you have Secretary of State John Kerry who said he will meet Friday with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavron. Today, he told a House hearing the world is looking to America to act.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: Our interest is in protecting the sovereignty and the independence of the territorial integrity of Ukraine with our European partners and others. We have a responsibility to be engaged and we are engaged. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Right now, President Obama is at the White House. He is sitting down and meeting with Ukraine's interim prime minister. This comes as tensions are rising in Crimea. CNN has just witnessed a tense standoff between a Ukrainian soldier pointing his weapon at pro- Russian forces.

We are covering it all for you with our senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, and our senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh in Crimea. But Jim Acosta to you first at the White House. We talk a lot about talking and meeting. I mean, what do we expect to happen from this face-to-face?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, there might be a fair number of diplomatic signals coming out of this meeting between the president and Prime Minister Yatsenyuk from Ukraine. As you mentioned, Brooke, he just arrived in the last few minutes. We do expect the president and the prime minister to make some remarks that will be able to watch and bring to you in just a few minutes from now.

And then we will be waiting to see if the prime minister comes out and make some statements to the press as you know Prime Minister Yatsenyuk does not hold back, but all of this is happening, Brooke, as there are some pretty fast-moving developments. You mentioned Secretary of State John Kerry is headed over to London to meet with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.

Interesting to note that earlier this week, the State Department was saying that the secretary would not be making such a trip to meet with Lavrov unless the Russians were making concrete steps to engage seriously on a diplomatic level to find that offering of out of the crisis in Crimea. So perhaps that has started to take place. We will have to wait and see.

The other interesting thing as you know, Brooke, is the G7, which is part of the G8. The G8 nations minus Russia. They put out that tough statement earlier this morning. They want to throw to that. That's something that came up at the White House today.

It says any such referendum would have no legal effect talking about this referendum scheduled for this Sunday in Crimea given the lack of adequate preparation and the intimidating presence of Russian troops. It would also be a deeply flawed process, which would have no moral force for all these reasons.

We would not recognize the outcome. A couple of important things there. One is White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was -- what does this mean that they are booting Russia out of the G8. Not so fast that is a threat that has been hanging over all of this.

The other this is this referendum. What if Russia perhaps as a diplomatic signal that it wants out of this crisis does not seek to annex Crimea after that referendum takes place? I asked Jay Carney about that and he said, you know what, we are going to have to wait and see how Russia reacts to this referendum. He called that a key question. So it's something we will be looking at -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Referendum, happening Sunday, that statement from the G7 echoing what we heard from the president at the White House, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the leader in France, illegal. You have what's happening in Crimea. Nick Paton Walsh, tell me about the standoff you and your crew witnessed there.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Quite a sigh from what Jim was talking about the diplomacy here. A lot of noise. That's not what's changing what's happening on the ground. Most people expect Sunday to bring (inaudible) much closer to Russia. Then the question is what happens to the thousands of Ukrainian troops still here.

We went to one base, a naval base in the northwest of the Crimea and we saw there how Ukrainian troops have dug themselves in behind sandbags and loaded their weapons because around them are moving in Russian troops. Some rush towards the base and closed towards the gates. They say Russian, but they don't have insignia. They introduce themselves to the training weapons and vehicles consistent with that.

These Russian soldiers moved down a fence towards the side of the base trying to probe the Ukrainian defenses and caused the Ukrainians I think to panic a little and put their alarms on and call everyone to the stations ready to defend the base and even bring an armed personal carrier close to the gates.

At that point the Russians pointed their heavy machine gun at the main entrance towards the base, a tense moment there. Ukrainian soldiers loaded weapons and faced at Russians who had loaded weapons faced back at them and then suddenly it deescalated. The Russians got on their truck, pulled back. At that point, a Russian attack helicopter circled the town. Tensions still persisting there -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Stopping short of pulling the trigger there. Nick Paton Walsh, thank you. Jim Acosta, thank you. We will stand by if we get anything from the Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk there at the White House.

Coming up in our next hour here on CNN, we will talk to another commercial airline pilot and his thoughts on this mystery of the Malaysian Flight 370. Would it have been easy to change course? Turn off that transponder at the same time? What happened there? He will explain what could have been going on in the cockpit when they lost of contact.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right, let's get back to the breaking news out of East Harlem in New York where at least two people are dead and more than two dozen others are injured after these two buildings collapsed in this explosion this morning believed to be from a gas leak. Look at the smoke here. Unbelievable this morning. The buildings collapsed, this is near the corner of Park Avenue and 116th Street sending smoke billowing into the air and blasts blowing out so many people's windows in this neighborhood.

It was 5-alarm fire. People had reported the smell of gas about a couple of minutes before this morning's blast. This is what the two buildings just for perspective's sake. This is what it looked like before this explosion. The other on the right in a repair shop and you will see what's left when we go live to Poppy Harlow. We now as we are learning the numbers of folks who were injured and there are also those who were unaccounted for.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. And that is the big question at this hour. Two dead and 24 injured and an unknown number still unaccounted for that coming from the mayor of New York City. The two people with me, thank you guys for being here. We have Jose Perez and Liz Robinson, your godmother and she's your aunt is missing. She lived on the second floor of 1644, one of the buildings who collapsed, what have you been doing to try to find her? I know you've been calling her cellphone nonstop. It's going right to voice mail?

LISA ROBINSON, AUNT LIVES IN COLLAPSED BUILDING: She immediately texted us that was our aunt's building. My other sister started calling all the local hospitals. We came to the scene and went directly to the Red Cross who informed us that the local councilwoman's office would have updated information of any individuals that were taken to hospitals. And she is still not on any of those lists.

HARLOW: I'm so sorry. We are all hoping for the best. She is 67 years old and very involved in the church that was on the first floor of that building. What can you me about her and what you guys are going to do after this? Obviously no one has really let within a block of the building.

JOSE PEREZ, GODMOTHER LIVES IN COLLAPSED BUILDING: Well, we're going to continue. We're going to go to the councilwoman's office. And they are doing the best that they can to reference hospital lists and to find out if she is at any of the hospitals.