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"WSJ": Jet May Have Flown For Four More Hours; FAA, NTSB Join Malaysia's Investigation

Aired March 13, 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, the mystery of Flight 370 deepens.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trust me when I say we will not give up.

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COSTELLO: Overnight, search crews come up empty. This turned out to be nothing.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was near 370's flight path in waters between Malaysia and Vietnam approximately 140 miles from where the plane's transponder went silent.

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COSTELLO: Is the search back to square one?

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why have you got such limited knowledge as to what happened to Flight MH370?

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COSTELLO: New reports just coming out claiming the flight was still in the air some four hours longer than previously thought.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The revelation could force a further expansion of the search that already spans 27,000 nautical square miles.

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COSTELLO: This as American investigators are on the ground trying to find answers. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me. The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Six days have gone by and Malaysian authorities are back to square one. This is all they know right now. Flight 370 left Kuala Lumpur at 12:41 a.m. Saturday. At 1:20 a.m., it dropped off the radar. At 2:15 a.m., something showed up on military defense radar near the Straits of Malacca far from Flight 370's route. That's about all they know.

So let's focus on that. Let's focus on this "Wall Street Journal" report. What if something -- what if that something was Flight 370. What if it flew on for hours after it dropped from the radar? What if it landed somewhere for some other purpose? That's what the "Wall Street Journal" is reporting this morning.

So let's talk about that. With me now CNN's Richard Quest and Kirk Fryar, the president of Sarasota Avionics and a man who knows all about transponders. Welcome, Gentlemen.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

COSTELLO: I want to start with you, Richard. Malaysian authorities say the "Wall Street Journal" is wrong, but the paper is quoting U.S. investigative sources who say pulses from the plane's engines were picked up by the engine's manufacturer, Rolls Royce. So Richard, can you help us understand that?

QUEST: Let's understand what the information would be if it's true. The engines are designed to continually transmit information via the aircraft's system, the automatic system of reporting. So it's all things like the speed of the engine, revolution, temperature. Basically maintenance and performance information on the engines that help both Malaysian Airlines and Rolls Royce in dealing with how these engines are performing.

Now this would have continued, but here's the problem. That system relies on the aircraft's own ACAR system to send out information. If that failed as we've been told, the other information -- we have basically here, Carol, one side and the other side. The "Wall Street Journal" says Rolls Royce have told them or they have it from unnamed sources that the engines continued to transmit information.

The Malaysian authorities say categorically at their news conference this morning in Kuala Lumpur this is not true. Rolls and Boeing have said nothing of the sort.

COSTELLO: So Kirk, do you care to tell us what you make of this?

KIRK FRYAR, PRESIDENT, SARASOTA AVIONICS: Also the ACAR device would send abnormal flight conditions if there were stall, a deep dive or something abnormal in the airline. It would have went to Malaysian Airlines or to Boeing. What happened to the ELT, emergency locater beacon? There should have been some kind -- if it did crashed, some kind of signal it sent out. Unless it was a complete explosion or something, the ELT or the ACAR couldn't have even worked.

COSTELLO: There's so many questions. Kirk, the "Wall Street Journal" also is reporting counterterrorism investigators are investigating whether the plane was hijacked and actually landed in some remote are. That of course means the plane's transponder would have been deliberately shut off. FRYAR: Yes, it could have been. They have a couple transponders on board. If the hijackers would have known that system, they would have been able to turn that system off. If the pilot and co-pilot knew that the hijackers were coming, they should have been able to hit the 7500 squawk code, which is international code for hijacking on the transponder. Hopefully they would have seen that 7500 come over the transponder even if it got turned off before the hijackers were able to turn it off.

COSTELLO: So Richard, if the transponder was somehow turned off, could that plane land somewhere and no one know about it?

QUEST: Well, yes. If the transponder was switched off and the plane was no longer transmit squawking as it's known, then yes, the plane -- the transponder has absolutely nothing to do with the ability of the aircraft to fly. It's literally I'm here, this is who I am. What would have happened, as that plane was flying, there would be full scale full throttle radar tracks, yes, the 777 could have flown low and tried to evade.

But you're not talking about a stealth fighter jet here. You're talking about the largest twin engine jet in the world. That's unlikely. There's one other point. If they wanted to switch off all the reporting systems, the transponder, the sat com (ph), the ACAR systems. If they were all going to be switched off, yes, pilots tell me that's possible, but it's not easy.

You have to know what you're doing. Again you come back, Carol, to the fundamental flaw in the hijack argument -- hijack and landing argument, which is there's no radar trace. You can't just fly a 777 and not have a radar trace.

COSTELLO: You'd need a big landing strip too wouldn't you? I mean, if you're going to land that thing, right?

QUEST: Yes. You need a minimum of 6,000 up to 10,000 feet if you're going to land that plane safely.

COSTELLO: So Kirk, you're the expert. What do you make of this? Like all of it? Kirk, can you hear me still? Darn. I really wanted to know the answer from Kirk. So Richard, I'll ask you that question. We have so many bits and pieces of information. Malaysia kind of shoots all of them down. We are back to square one. What should we make of all of this?

QUEST: I'm going to be marginally more optimistic. We're back to square one at one level, but where we are -- Carol, the investigation has now tightened up. You can feel it in the press conferences. You can feel it in the information. The initial shock and crisis and the rabbit in the head lights has gone from the Malaysian authorities. There's a sort of a much more intense way in which they're answering questions and dealing with the information.

I'm guessing partly that's because they've gotten into their stride. I also think -- and I have no evidence other than a gut feeling from watching these over the years, I think it's the NTSB, FAA and all those people who are extremely experienced investigating flight crashes, they are now on the ground and they are now having -- they're getting their hands dirty in helping the Malaysians on this.

COSTELLO: I hope so because there's no organization better than the NTSB. They're amazing. Kirk, I'll ask the question you couldn't hear. In listening to all that's gone on during this investigation, what do you make of it as somebody who is expert in flight?

FRYAR: It's just amazing. That type of airplane completely disappearing. It's like the Bermuda Triangle effect or something. I can't see that airplane flying for 2,200 miles landing at an airport without somebody knowing. That airplane has to land at a very big airport, which is usually a major city. It's unreasonable that airplane flew somewhere else unless it's some secret military base or something, for it to just disappear like that and not found.

With the technology that we have today with ultrasound into the water and radar penetrating systems that we can't find it even if it is on the bottom of the ocean. It's amazing that they can't find it now.

COSTELLO: Amazing and quite sad. Kirk Fryar and Richard Quest, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

FRYAR: Thank you Carol.

COSTELLO: Earlier this morning, I spoke with the former NTSB Vice Chairman Bob Francis to get his perspective on his former agency's role in the search for that missing jet, the politics involved and that "Wall Street Journal" report that has sparked new questions about what happened after Flight 370 disappeared.

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COSTELLO: I know NTSB investigators are in Malaysia helping with the investigation as are FAA investigators. But how much input do you think they really have?

BOB FRANCIS, FORMER VICE CHAIRMAN, NTSB: Well, I hope they have a lot because there's certainly nobody more competent to do this kind of thing. On the other hand from what one hears, there's a lot of politics going on out there. The Malaysians are at least for the moment in charge of the investigation. So you go and do what they tell you to do. The NTSB is a technical agency, the U.S. government or U.S. itself doesn't have any interest in this other than finding out what happened. I just find the article remarkable. It's one of a series of remarkable things that we continue to come across in this investigation.

COSTELLO: Let's go back to that. You're talking about the "Wall Street Journal" report. You find it remarkable, why?

FRANCIS: Well, Andy Pastor is a very reputable journalist who knows this stuff in aviation as much as anyone. For him to have created this article out of whole cloth for me stretches. You don't know where to go. I would go with what Andy said because I have great faith in him. He doesn't have any political acts to grind as to the Malaysians.

COSTELLO: So a question, if the "Wall Street Journal" report is credible and the plane flew on four hours undetected that means someone probably commandeered the plane right?

FRANCIS: Someone commandeer it or the pilots decided to do what happened. You don't know necessarily what it was, but certainly somehow inside the airplane a decision was made either as a result of force or as a result of volition to fly on.

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COSTELLO: Malaysia rejected the "Wall Street Journal" report as false. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the flight data recorder or black box is key to the search for the missing plane. The battery is slowly expiring. Bill Nye, the science guy joins me next to explain that part of the story.

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COSTELLO: Malaysia is knocking down another possible lead in the search of the missing plane. These Chinese satellite images that appeared to show some kind of debris in the sea, well, Malaysia now says China released the images, quote, "by mistake." Search crews have found no sign of Flight 370. David McKenzie is in Beijing. China released these images by mistake?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, that's pretty funny when you say it that way because China doesn't generally releases anything much about anything. Certainly the last few days we've been used to Vietnamese authorities putting out statements about what they've seen in the ocean and then Malaysia debunking it.

Yesterday this was one of the strongest leads we've had to date, Carol. These images taken by an official satellite, of course, by the Chinese government were released saying this was a potential crash site. Earlier, the Malaysian authorities sort of swing that back to China. Take a listen.

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HISHAMMUDDIN BIN HUSSEIN, ACTING MALAYSIAN MINISTER OF TRANSPORTATION: When the Chinese satellite imagery, a Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency surveillance plane was dispatched this morning to investigate potential debris shown on Chinese satellite images. We deployed our assets but found nothing. We have contacted the Chinese Embassy that notified us this afternoon that the images were released by mistake and did not show any debris from MH 370.

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MCKENZIE: Well, Carol, that's from the Malaysian authorities blaming the Chinese for releasing those by mistake. The Chinese haven't said anything to us. Thought the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here in Beijing said this morning they weren't aware of it. They hadn't passed on the information. Certainly a bit of a muddy issue in fingerprinting from both China and Malaysia. With all these countries involved and all these ships and planes looking in a huge area for this plane. It's certainly understandable there's some level of confusion, but also diplomatic spat between the two countries -- Carol.

COSTELLO: David McKenzie reporting live from Beijing this morning. So far no ping has been recorded from the plane's flight data recorder often called the black box. It has 24 days of battery life left. Joining me now, Bill Nye, "The Science Guy." Welcome, Bill.

BILL NYE "THE SCIENCE GUY": Hi.

COSTELLO: I'm glad you're here because you actually worked on flight data recorder technology at Boeing. Is there anything you haven't done?

NYE: Well, no. I was an engineer at Boeing and an engineer at another company called Sun Strand now part of Honeywell. It's closely related. Anyway, 24 days is a long time. All of us are doing nothing but speculating. What I would do is go back to the original last reported position, last known position. I would listen very closely underwater. Listening to the reporting, watching the reporting, I think the key is listening for this pinger. You see that on the end, that silver cylinder with a label on it.

You have to be a nautical mile. You have to be pretty close to hear it. I believe the U.S. Navy as an example has the equipment to listen to this. I can't tell from the reporting if the U.S. Navy has been allowed in there. It doesn't seem as though people are relying too heavily on underwater microphones, hydro phones to help you find this thing.

We've got to also -- I know this is your business -- find out what the facts are. Did somebody really get a message from the engines four hours later? It seems extraordinary. As you pointed out, where are you going to land such a plane? You need a couple miles of run way the to put the thing down.

COSTELLO: Exactly. Supposedly according to the "Wall Street Journal," this came from Rolls Royce because they made the engine. The engine sent back these data pulses. Supposedly they picked these data pulses from the plane's engines four hours after it disappeared from radar. The problem is, you need to know the exact location and then go underwater. I don't think anybody knows the last known location of that plane was.

NYE: Well, here we are. It is charming, remarkable, how fascinated all of us are even today with plane crashes. There's something still very compelling. We in the west in the developed world have the expectation that everything is on radar all the time and that satellite images are accessible to everyone in the world with the way we experience, for example, Google maps.

There in the developing world it's not clear if things really could disappear from the radar. I can tell you in the space business, the Chinese Space Administration has a strong connection with the Chinese military. They're reluctant to share how much they know. So this is also led to all the speculation about that debris that was apparently observed from what they express as weather satellites.

COSTELLO: The other problem, there's no independent organization in charge of the investigation. You have the military and civilian authorities in Malaysia. It's not like here when the NTSB takes charge of the investigation and throws politics a side and just concentrate on the data. That doesn't seem to be happening in Malaysia right at the moment.

NYE: As I say, we have different traditions of transparency. As much as we all complain about -- for example the United States government involvement in this thing or that thing, this is a case where our traditions affect our expectations. We expect that people would find this plane, listen for the pinger, and just go get it especially with the water being not as extraordinarily deep as it is in many parts of the ocean.

I am hopeful that the negotiations will continue and the U.S. government will allow the U.S. Navy to get in there with hydro phones and find this thing soon. Twenty four days is a long time.

COSTELLO: Yes.

NYE: If you have a pretty good idea of the last known position, my expectation is we'll find it. Man, what a remarkable story. The mystery, I mean -- it really is compelling.

COSTELLO: It is. The good news is NTSB and FAA are on the ground running now, right? They're going to get their hands dirty according to Richard Quest and look at radar data that's coming in. Hopefully they'll find something and help Malaysia get it together. Bill, "The Science Guy," thank you so much.

NYE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: As the search goes on for Flight 370, a new question. Could this turn into a criminal investigation? I'll talk about that next.

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COSTELLO: The mystery continues with few answers and lots of theories including the theory this missing Malaysian plane could have flown on four hours after it disappeared from the radar. That's what the "Wall Street Journal" is reporting.

My next guest is a captain with Alaska Airlines and serves as the first vice president for the Airline Pilots Association International. His name is Shawn Cassidy. He joins me now from Washington. Good morning, sir.

CAPTAIN SEAN CASSIDY, ALASKA AIRLINES: Good morning. How are you?

COSTELLO: I'm good. So you've heard this latest theory I'm assuming? CASSIDY: Yes, I have.

COSTELLO: Is that possible?

CASSIDY: Well, I suppose anything is possible at this point especially given the fact hah there's so many sources of information now. It was a limited radar environment in that portion of the world. I've flown over there many in the past. I think the one thing that's obviously now is there's all these silos of information we're getting. There needs to be one comprehensive picture built that takes the most authentic details and data points and starts there as the means to kind of solve the puzzle as to where the plane actually is.

COSTELLO: The "Wall Street Journal" is citing U.S. investigative sources. The Malaysia government shut down the "Wall Street Journal" report saying it's absolutely not true. They've said that about a lot of bits and pieces of information coming in. It gets more and more confusing doesn't it?

CASSIDY: It really does. That speaks to the first point I was discussing. This situation is evolving literally by the minute. There's so many different information sources. We just saw the other day that there was a report about Chinese satellite imagery which spoke to the need to focus the search and rescue effort on a certain portion of the ocean. Then we heard about the engine reports on substantiated. We have blocks of information, but they're not coming together to draw one clear picture.

COSTELLO: As you sit and take this all in -- and I don't think this kind of investigation would ever take place here in the United States. Do you?

CASSIDY: I seriously doubt it. We have a very unified approach to how we deal with accidents. The type of coverage, type of technologies that we have here in the U.S. It's such that it would be highly improbable we would have something like this.

COSTELLO: I want to talk about the pilots for just a second. Something else the Malaysian government denied this morning is they searched the lead pilot's house. That would be something you kind of did as common practice in the United States. Shouldn't they be searching the pilot's house?

CASSIDY: I think that's a question that's going to be -- have to be answered by the regulators, by the investigator, by the officials overseas. Obviously everybody wants to know what was happening up on that flight deck. Everybody is looking for data points which might speak to motives. Right now there's still too many unanswered questions. That's going to perform one portion of the puzzle but won't create the whole picture.

COSTELLO: I'm sure you're talk act this mystery flight with your pilot friends. Have you guys come up with a theory?

CASSIDY: I think as tempting as it would be right now to make declarative statements about what we think happened, I think because of the fact like I said -- almost by the minute there's a different piece of information that comes out. It would be premature to try to hang our hat on any one thing. The details keep on changing.

COSTELLO: Is it likely in your mind the plane did crash?

CASSIDY: I think it's highly probable that it crashed if it went off the chart so to speak. If they lost contact with it and they haven't received any contact since. I mean, there are a lot of theories out there about possibly find some other portion, but I think, as some of your previous guests pointed out, that's a very large plane.