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The Mystery of Flight 370; Homes of Both Pilots Searched

Aired March 17, 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: The search for the missing plane in the Indian Ocean. Another bit of information.

The Malaysia Airline CEO believes it was the co-pilot who said those final words to air traffic control, "All right, good night."

And then there's this. The "New Strait Times," the Malaysian newspaper, says Flight 370 flew down to 5,000 feet through three countries in an effort to avoid radar. Now keep in mind the paper is quoting unnamed sources.

We're devoting the next two hours to this ever changing mystery. We begin our coverage with Martin Savidge in a 777 flight simulator along with flight instructor Mitchell Casado.

Good morning to both of you.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

SAVIDGE: Here's the scenario we set up for you now. Given that new information we were talking about, the 5,000 feet or below to avoid radar. We are flying over Pakistan, we're headed north. This is that northern route that's been spoken of and we're at 6,500 feet. But actually the terrain here so mountainous we're only 1,500 feet above the ground. You can -- it's daylight we've set up in this scenario. It would have been nighttime for that plane.

These are the hazards you run up against. In many cases you are not flying over the mountains any more you're flying through them. That means that Mitchell here is flying manually and you can feel us banking and yanking as we literally try to find our way through the mountain passes. At the same time the aircraft is sending out all sorts of warnings to us that he's way too low. And what are we doing? Are we landing?

So, Mitchell, just try and describe flying here.

MITCHELL CASADO, PILOT TRAINER, 777 COCKPIT SIMULATOR: It's an extremely fast pace, unforgiving environment. Low to the ground. Not a lot of time to react.

SAVIDGE: That alarms that are continually signaling like right now we're going too fast. He's got to pull back on that. He's also being told, look, if you're flying this low why isn't the landing gear down, which -- I can put it down, right?

CASADO: Go ahead, put it down.

SAVIDGE: So we put the gear down. This way to try to satisfy the airplane. To reduce some of the alarms but this creates tremendous drag, right?

CASADO: Yes. Absolutely. More drag, more fuel consumption. Very inefficient way to fly an airplane.

SAVIDGE: So it's really to imagine, and let me just put it up again, that an aircraft, especially at night flying through the mountainous region of Pakistan, Afghanistan and any of the other Stans that are known in this region to do that would be almost suicidal.

But I will point out something else. Military radar are still going to be following this aircraft. They may not know who it is, but they are certainly going to be alarmed that you've got a large aircraft flying through disputed airspace.

We're very near Kashmir and it's a heavy militarized region between Pakistan and India. So again, this is 5,000 feet and it feels like you're on the deck -- Carol.

COSTELLO: OK. Let me ask you something else. So for a plane to fly that low and the thinking is this plane flew, what, up to four to seven hours after they lost track of it by radar? The air is denser, the closer to the ground you get. Wouldn't fuel burn off faster in denser air?

SAVIDGE: Yes. This is something that Mitchell and I have been talking about. Fuel consumption at this altitude. How does it compare to, say, cruising altitude?

CASADO: You're doubling your fuel consumption especially if you're flying with the landing gear down. That's a tremendous amount of drag. You're going to cut your flying time in half.

SAVIDGE: And of course it would also mean you cut the range in half. So there's no telling how far you could have gone when you're burning up this much fuel -- Carol.

COSTELLO: OK. Another question. There were more than 200 passengers aboard that plane. So what would they be doing if the plane is cruising along at 5,000 feet?

SAVIDGE: And again, this is something that Mitchell and I have been talking about. If a plane is down this low, any passenger would know it's irregular, there's something wrong. What would you expect them to be doing, Mitchell?

CASADO: The passengers are -- I mean, they're going to be freaking out. I mean, they're going to be pulling out their phones. What would you be doing? You would be calling your friends and asking what the hell is going on, right?

SAVIDGE: Right.

CASADO: So I mean, it's very -- and they'd be freaking out. This is insane.

SAVIDGE: Assuming that the passengers are awake and have the ability, it would more than likely seem that they're trying to communicate with somebody even if the plane is not.

COSTELLO: Because the theory was the plane went up to 45,000 feet. At that point the passengers would pass out. But as the plane lowered would the passengers gain consciousness then? And this is all speculation, mind you, but these are the things being brought up.

SAVIDGE: Right. But, again, that altitude, you're right, when they went above 45,000 feet it was well beyond what is normal operation for this aircraft. And just watching -- Mitchell tries to clear this mountain range here. And so what would have happened to the passengers? It is very possible that they could have passed out, that the systems were providing oxygen and air at that altitude wouldn't have worked as well especially if they went through that very steep, steep dive supposedly 45,000 feet. And then I don't think anybody would have withstood that and stayed conscious.

COSTELLO: All right, Martin Savidge and Pilot Mitchell Casado, we'll get back to you throughout NEWSROOM. Thank you so much.

Investigators agree whoever commandeered that plane knew what they were doing, that knew the intricacies of flying a Boeing 777. So finally Malaysian investigators are now focusing on who was aboard that plane.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (voice-over): Finally, more than a week after Flight 370 vanished, Malaysian plainclothes officers searched the homes of both pilots, the first, 27-year-old Fariq Abdul Hamid. The co-pilot lived with his parents and according to the CEO of Malaysia Airlines uttered the last words to air traffic controllers at 1:19 a.m. last Saturday, "All right, good night."

AHMAD JAUHARI YAHYA, MALAYSIA AIRLINE CEO: Initial investigations indicated it was the co-pilot who basically spoke the last time it was recorded on tape.

COSTELLO: The interesting twist here, at 1:07 a.m. a full 12 minutes before Hamid's final words, one of the plane's ACARS or communication systems had already been shut off. These are pictures of Hamid on a previous flight. There is nothing obviously suspicious about him except for an incident in 2011 when two Australian passengers say he allowed them inside the cockpit on a 2011 flight from Thailand to Malaysia. Neighbors said this about Hamid's mother.

RASHDAH ISMAIL, NEIGHBOR: When we do the prayer, the hajat prayer, you know, almost every day, every night. I pray for her and for the family. I think that he's quite good --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, patient.

ISMAIL: Patient. Yes, patient. Facing this problem.

COSTELLO: Investigators also searched the pilot's home, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah. They carted out his homemade flight simulator.

PETER CHONG, FRIEND OF MISSING CAPTAIN: Captain Zaharie is a very sociable person, a person who loves people, who enjoys his work. And as far as his job as a pilot, he is definitely a very committed, professional pilot.

COSTELLO: Zaharie's family posted a YouTube tribute to their father, describing Captain Shah as loving, reflective, generous, cool, sporting, intelligent, supportive, and the list goes on and on. You see the T-shirt he is wearing in this photo. It says, "Democracy is dead." He wore it at a May, 2013 rally on Kuala Lumpur where supporters protested charges of vote tampering by the majority party.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Let's bring in former NTSB vice chairman Bob Francis now.

Thank you so much for joining me once again, Bob.

BOB FRANCIS, FORMER VICE CHAIRMAN, NTSB: That's fine. Nice to be here.

COSTELLO: Thank you for being here. Let's focus on those pilots. Malaysia Airline says the last words "All right, good night," probably came from the co-pilot at 1:19 a.m. on Saturday. That was after some communication systems were shut down. Why wouldn't air traffic controllers ask the pilots about that?

FRANCIS: I think they would. And there seems to be -- the communication seems to have just ended at that point.

COSTELLO: What would have been done in the United States if this had happened? Let's just take it from there. If a communications system so important was shut down and then you heard from the co-pilot after that happened, what would you do?

FRANCIS: Well, I think that you'd try to make sure -- I mean there's so much redundancy in terms of communication. You want to make sure you don't have any -- have any communication and at that point I would imagine that there would be launching of aircraft, a military aircraft to see what was going on.

COSTELLO: And as far as we know, that wasn't done in the Malaysia situation?

FRANCIS: That wasn't done in the Malaysian situation, although I think a lot more justification than just the loss of communication.

COSTELLO: But the pilot's family, they released that YouTube video I showed our viewers about their father. He seems so normal. This was a guy who lived in an upper class community. He was passionate about his job. He made homemade videos about fixing air conditioners. What do you make of this?

FRANCIS: Well, I make a little bit of something of the age of the -- of the co-pilot and that may be unfair. But 27 years old with -- I don't know how many hours but it can't be too many is really very, very young for somebody in the right seat of an aircraft like that. You would never find that in most places in the world.

COSTELLO: I think he had just finished his training and he had some 2,000 hours and then there was that incident when he let those teenage girls inside the cockpit to pose for pictures with him. So in your mind as an investigator, would suspicion be focused on him?

FRANCIS: Well, I think that -- I think suspicion probably when you got two pilots and so many things going on that you'd be focusing on both of them. But I think that given his age and given his previous actions that he would certainly warrant a good deal of focus.

COSTELLO: So would it be of added significance that he was the one who communicated with air traffic controllers the last time they heard from the cockpit?

FRANCIS: I wouldn't think necessarily.

COSTELLO: We know there was a flight simulator in Captain Shah's home. And there's this new theory that the plane flew at 5,000 feet to avoid radar detection. Would it take someone as passionate and as knowledgeable about flight as Captain Shah to fly for a sustained period at such a low altitude?

FRANCIS: I -- you know, I think that anybody that's become a captain of a 777 probably would be as competent to do that as he was.

COSTELLO: Do you put any credence in that theory that the aircraft -- managed to flight at 5,000 feet for hours and hours?

FRANCIS: No.

COSTELLO: It -- I just can't believe it either. It came from a Malaysia newspaper, unnamed sources, and a whole bunch of theories are coming out. Why does this defy credulity in your mind?

FRANCIS: Well, because -- you had some of this on already. Because of the amount of fuel that you would be burning at that altitude. And, you know, it's an awful lot more, and what's the rationale? I mean the difficulty with this is nothing seems to -- nothing in the whole what's happened seemed to fit together. And that makes it difficult for any of us whether we have any expertise or not to really be terribly accurate about what we're trying to -- what we're trying to -- we can say what we think but that's about all.

COSTELLO: Bob Francis, thanks so much for your insight. I appreciate it.

Still ahead in the NEWSROOM American Philip Wood is one of the 239 passengers aboard that flight.

CNN's David McKenzie talked with his partner who's still holding out hope he's alive.

Good morning.

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. And he is really a Texan native on that plane who is missing and his partner, long-term partner believes he's still alive. I talked to him -- I talked to her about Phillip Wood after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Ten days into the search for that missing plane, families of the 239 people onboard are, of course, desperate for answer. American Philip Wood is among those passengers. Wood and his partner Sarah Bajc have been planning on moving to Kuala Lumpur in the coming weeks and getting married.

Bajc told CNN's David McKenzie she believes Woods is still alive and being held hostage somewhere.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH BAJC, PARTNER OF PASSENGER ABOARD MISSING PLANE: The entire U.S. population is reliving things like 9/11 in this experience, right? If an unthinkable thing can happen even after we've taken all these precautions, what could happen next?

This is a planned activity. Somebody wants to do something and make a message out it and it would serve them no good to be seen as callous and brutal and just start killing people unnecessarily because then they won't have as much bargaining power, I think. I think. I mean, I can't imagine to put myself into the mindset of somebody who would even possibly contemplate this.

But I've got to believe that the hostages are valuable to them. And as the only adult American on the flight Philip would be a valuable asset. He's very calm and very put together and he would know to step back and, you know, not cause any conflict so he wouldn't be somebody that they would want to get out of the way as a trouble causer.

If there's anybody who can survive a situation like that, it's him. Very level headed. And I think he is the kind of person who would help to calm a really chaotic situation. Of course, I have to prepare for the worse because no matter what, I still have to go forward. And no matter what his family still has to go forward.

So, we need to, to know where that fork in the road is going to go. And we're not ready to take either branch, but we have to know what's coming because otherwise when it comes you won't be prepared and that's when you get into trouble, I think.

MCKENZIE: You need to be prepared for whatever the news is.

BAJC: My bag is packed and ready to go. It has been since Saturday morning.

MCKENZIE: Ready to go where? BAJC: Wherever he is. My son even helped me pick out which clothes to bring for him, so I have an outfit for him in my backpack. Because he wouldn't want to wear his dirty old stuff any more I'm sure or wouldn't want to wear a hospital gown if that's the case, so, yep, it's all ready.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Just heartbreaking. David McKenzie joins us now from Beijing.

Is she hearing anything from Malaysian authorities about what's going on?

MCKENZIE: She doesn't seem to blame Malaysian authorities, Carol, or the airlines at all. Unlike some of the people we've spoken to.

You know, it is that heartbreaking, not knowing, that belief that really this love of her life is alive and well or alive and hurt somewhere. She honestly believes that.

And she said her friends say she must be in denial. The likelihood this plane crashed and she's willing at some point to believe that. But, you know, she's -- Sarah is a very logical former high flying businesswoman who believes that she can figure this out. She started a Facebook page, Twitter page, finding Philip Wood, and she's trying to gather crowdsourcing to know to know anything she can to get comments or tips or understanding or watching CNN which she's doing a great deal to try to get a sense to logically believe he's alive and also deep down inside she feels her presence -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I can't say I wouldn't do it differently. I can't.

So, thanks so much, David McKenzie. We appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, as the search area expands, U.S. naval resources have joined the hunt for Flight 370. We'll talk to a commander aboard the USS Blue Ridge about how the search is going so far.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The search for Flight 370 now covers at least part of 11 countries, an enormous swath of ocean. Some of it more than two miles deep.

The USS Blue Ridge, that's the command ship of the Seventh Fleet, has joined in the hunt in the South China Sea.

Joining me by phone from aboard that vessel is Commander William Marks.

Welcome, commander.

COMMANDER WILLIAM MARKS, USS BLUE RIDGE (via telephone): Thank you. Glad to be here. COSTELLO: Thank you for being with me. Latest evidence suggests this plane way far beyond the South China Sea. But you guys are still searching there. Why?

MARKS: Well, right now we moved the USS Kidd to the Indian Ocean. We started out in the Gulf of Thailand. They went through the Strait of Malacca and they covered as much of the Andaman Sea as they can which is to the west of Burma.

When you move from a small area like Gulf of Thailand which has relatively defined boundaries in to an area like the Indian Ocean it's a new ball game. The Kidd and its helicopters are relatively short ranged. Fortunately, we do have a P8 Poseidon and a P3 are our long range search aircraft, just to give you some comparison, our ship can travel 300, 400, 500 miles in the course of a couple hours.

The P8 yesterday flew about 1,200 nautical miles, had another four hours on station and then flew that. So, over that nine hours flight. It covered 10,000, 12,000 a square nautical miles. So, right now, it's looking like our long range assets the best for such a big area.

COSTELLO: I know that. That sounds a little hi-tech and fast, but I know the search is actually quite slow and tedious. When you do spot something in the water, what does your crew do?

MARKS: I'll give an example. Our P8 was flying yesterday and they fly at about 5,000 to 10,000 feet. We have a very advanced surface search radar, to give you an example. We can see from our radar small wooded crates, even things like small piece of thrash. So, we'll get a radar return. It pops up on our radar.

From then, we either fly lower, get one of our optical sensors on there or even fly lower and get a visual identification. So, the first thing we do is we see it on radar.

COSTELLO: How many times has this happened?

MARKS: All the time. So yesterday the p8 was flying and it comes -- it sees very small specs on its radar. A lot of it is a judgment call. A lot of it is the decision of the pilots and air crew. They were flying and had a choice, they could either fly over an area let's say not yet searched or fly to this area where they were getting very small radar returns.

So, what they did they decided to check out what those radar returns were and it actually turned out it was just some trash and debris not associated with an aircraft wrecker. You just keep doing that over and over, like I said, their flight is nine hours long, so it takes a lot of concentration, a lot of focus on the part of that air crew.

COSTELLO: I know some of the debris from the plane if it did indeed crash in the sea would float up to top. What sorts of debris are they specifically looking for?

MARKS: Well, you know, if there's something out there, we fly over it. We're definitely going to find it on the radar. At this point, we're looking for anything and then when we do find it we go get a visual. So, if we get it on the radar and we don't know what it is we get closer either with the P8, P3 or if there's a helicopter nearby we use that to get a closer identification.

First is the radar and then you try for a visual identification. It really doesn't matter what we see on the radar. We'll take a look at it visually.

COSTELLO: I know you have good hearts and you desperately want to find something and resolve this matter, but this search must be incredibly frustrating for you and your crew. Tell us about that.

MARKS: It is challenging, and I have to give so much credit to those, about 400 U.S. Navy sailors out here right now and this is a 24 operation. And these sailors are so dedicated.

I heard yesterday they are volunteering their off time, they have doubled some of their watches, they have cut short their meal hours to search and taking on extra people on deck looking out. So, I give so much credit to those sailors.

This is what we do. This is what we train for. In the Seventh Fleet, we have exercises, more than 80 exercises a year to practice these type of things and we build these relationships so that when a crisis occurs we can immediately move in, coordinate with all these other countries and execute the plan that we trained for and that's what we're doing now.

COSTELLO: Well, we're certainly proud out there. Commander William Marks, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

MARKS: Thank you.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

COSTELLO: All right. We do have a bit of break being news out of California.