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Search for Flight 370 Continues; Pilot Had Social Media and Online Presence; Frustrated Families Demand Answers

Aired March 19, 2014 - 15:30   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 are watching CNN.

Could the mystery behind what happened to this missing airliner be revealed in the pilot's at-home flight simulator in this -- as it's been referred to as this video game that he had.

Right now, the FBI is trying to recover whatever was on this hard drive as we learn that data was deleted from this pilot's device at home.

Now, that happened sometime before the third of February, we know that, one month before this ill-fated flight, this as we learn the flight computer was manually reprogrammed to go off course to take that left turn, diverting west at least 12 minutes before those final words from the cockpit, "All right, good night."

A senior official telling CNN that intelligence from the NTSB has now led searchers to the southern part of this arc, and, more specifically here, as you see this map, the Indian Ocean just off the west coast of Australia, that's where they are honing in, according to this official.

I know you have a lot of questions, so let's answer them with an expert. We're bringing him back because he's just fantastic and he knows 777s, commercial airline pilot and certified airline accident investigator Bill Savage.

So, Bill, are you ready to answer some questions, sir?

BILL SAVAGE, COMMERICAL AIRLINE PILOT: Yes.

BALDWIN: OK, so first question comes from Ali. Ali, thank you for your question. This is Ali. Ali is asking this.

"Why wouldn't members of the cabin crew use their satellite phones to call for help when it became clear that the route was changed?"

Bill?

SAVAGE: The cabin crew wouldn't know anything about what's going on in the cockpit. If they were at their stations, the door would be closed. I don't believe this door was equip and didn't have Wi-Fi capabilities and it's one of the comfort items.

It's not unreasonable -- not a reasonable assumption that the flight attendants would have going do with this.

BALDWIN: OK, next question, Bill, from Tyler, asking something a lot of people are actually asking me.

"With all the satellites, are there satellites with cameras looking for any sign of the crash or jetliner?"

That's a good question.

SAVAGE: Yeah. You're well outside my expertise, about satellites.

My understanding of the -- of our K-11 satellites is that they have incredible capability with their cameras. They probably would have seen a flash.

Communication satellites that are in place which are primarily military satellites, I'm totally unfamiliar with, so I couldn't --

BALDWIN: OK, let's not put you in a wheelhouse that you're not familiar with, but that's a great question.

SAVAGE: Not my expertise.

BALDWIN: We can put that to someone who would know.

One more question, this is from Donna Harold, and Donna's question is, "Why can't they use drones" -- and, again, I don't know if you can answer this -- "why can't they use drone to fly over remote land masses, taking tons of photos to try to find it?"

SAVAGE: The drones have an incredible range capability and also have those exquisite cameras on board, so I wouldn't be surprised if that is not happening as we speak.

BALDWIN: Bill, I have to imagine that you're talking with your pilot friends, and also, I'm sure, people are just asking you, as I did during commercial when we were just chatting, what is the question number one you keep getting from people?

SAVAGE: They keep asking me what I did with the airplane.

BALDWIN: Like you know.

SAVAGE: Levity aside, we don't know. The facts are very thin. We are really basing a lot of "what-ifs" on assumptions that are being presented and trying to come to a conclusion without any facts.

So, until they find the airplane or they find some communication, either in written form or verbal form, from either the pilots, if they were involved, or some group that is taking credit for this -- you have to have those two items, the communication from the pilots or the aircraft itself to find out what happened.

When you get those black boxes, they'll know.

BALDWIN: Captain Bill Savage, I'm sure we'll be talking again. Thank you, sir.

And, folks, keep your questions coming because we're going to be spending an entire hour, again tonight, answering your questions, live on CNN.

Watch my colleague Don Lemon. It's "THE DON LEMON SHOW," 10:00 Eastern, right here on CNN.

As passengers' families struggle to find out what happened to their loved ones on Flight 370, others are, of course, formulating their own theories about what happened.

Sarah Bajc is the partner of missing American passenger Phil Wood, and Wood is one of three Americans who was onboard that 777.

Bajc believes he is still alive and that this jet's disappearance is no accident. And she shared her own ideas about what investigators should do now on CNN's "AC360."

And she made, also, a very emotional plea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH BAJC, PARTNER OF MISSING FLIGHT 370 PASSENGER: I have intuition and I have a feeling that they are still alive.

And common sense to say, if I was a terrorist, what would I do? I would want to protect those very valuable assets of the people on the plane because that would be the leverage point.

So, if we spent as much energy looking into motives and potential places where the plane could be, maybe we'd be coming up with some different answers.

I'm hoping and asking, please, to not hurt the people on the plane. Find some other way to accomplish what you are trying to accomplish, but don't hurt the people. Let Philip come back to me, please.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: They have been together for three years. In fact, this couple was about to move from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur where they both have new jobs. They had plans to get married this year.

This mystery has many asking about the safety of flying, so coming up next, we'll talk about the anxieties that are now surfacing and how the families are begging the media to stay on it, to keep covering this.

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Let's get you back to the missing plane, but something else. Today, the nation's first chairwoman of the Federal Reserve headed her first policymaking meeting at the Fed and the calls Janet Yellen made are having a huge impact because, you see here, the Dow down triple- digits, down 102 points here as we're just 20 minutes finished -- ahead of finishing the trading day.

Yellen said the central bank will continue easing back on that economic stimulus, backing $10 billion less in bonds, and she said no change in interest rates. The Fed also said cold weather slowed down the economy in recent months.

And as we pick back up with our special coverage, let me just tell you a little story here, because I left work yesterday. I was running around, errands. I was at Whole Foods, of all places, just getting some juice.

And a man recognized me at the counter, and he said hello, and I said hello. And the very next thing out of this mouth was literally this, "Brooke, have they found the plane yet?"

I tweeted it out and I ended up actually chatting with him for 10 minutes about what I knew, what he thought and how this really makes our worst fears about flying even more frightening.

And I have to tell you that conversation stayed with me ever since. And I can't help but wonder, what is it, whether you want to admit to it or not, that has so many invested in this mystery.

So, let me chat about this with our senior media correspondent, Brian Stelter, host of "RELIABLE SOURCES."

And, Brian, I've thought so much about this and I'm sure you have as well, this -- I don't know -- obsession, fascination with the story.

Is it because this just taps into everyone's innermost fears about flying, do you think?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": I think that's a big part of it.

If you think back to the dawn of time, stories have beginnings, middles and ends. And this story doesn't have an end. That is what we are so used to and not just in our society today, but going back thousands of years.

That's how storytelling works about anything, whether it's a news event or it's a bedtime story, and because this doesn't have an end, I think people are fixated. I think obsessed is a fair word.

I've had a -- struck a deal in my family. My wife and I a few days ago said, because we work on different schedules, we go to bed at different times, if one of us is asleep and there's big plane news, we are waking the other person up.

BALDWIN: Yeah.

STELTER: That might sound a little strange, a little silly, but I think that's happening with lots of people. They want to be there when there is some ending to this story.

BALDWIN: People are tweeting me that they're waking up. First thing they're logging onto the Internet to see. People are walking around, Do you know? Have they found it? Have they found it?

And then you have the angle with the families, because they are clearly, as any of us would be, absolutely desperate for information and now they're telling members of the media, please, stay on this story, keep the spotlight shining, continue pushing for answers.

And I can't say I blame them.

STELTER: This is one of the things I've wanted to point out when we've heard some people online and some people writing in Twitter messages to me, like they are to you maybe, saying there is too much coverage of this.

BALDWIN: Right. Over it.

STELTER: I respect that point of view, although I think it's kind of dated. We live in a world now where there are so many sources of information. You can always find information about whatever you care about.

But, in this case, I think journalists staying on this story is helping to get answers. It's helping to put pressure on foreign governments to get answers. And that's one of the fundamental jobs of journalists, to be demanding answers.

By the way, Malaysia, not a country known for a free press, it's a largely state-run press there. They're not used to pesky journalists demanding answers on behalf of citizens. Its' a good thing that, in this case, that's what's happening.

BALDWIN: Seems to me they're not used to a lot of this, Brian Stelter.

Brian Stelter, thank you so much.

STELTER: Thanks.

BALDWIN: We watch you on Sundays, "RELIABLE SOURCES."

And, coming up next, the five things we know about the pilot being investigated here, including his Facebook postings about the United States.

And we have shown you this, speaking of the families, just a heart- wrenching scene in Malaysia, passengers' families getting emotional, demanding answers, being carried out of the room.

Many of these families still in China, very, very frustrated and some now are turning to U.S. attorneys to see what their options are. Stay right here. You're watching CNN's special coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The FBI is searching a hard drive recovered from the in-home simulator of Flight 370's pilot.

Malaysian officials say some of the data was erased about a month before the flight took off.

What does that mean? What was deleted? We can't say for sure, although I can tell you investigators are looking right now.

We do know this, that the pilot had a presence on social media, Facebook, et cetera. Samuel Burke has been delving a little deeper on that.

So, Samuel, what have you found?

SAMUEL BURKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We can't be absolutely certain this is his page. All of the evidence would indicate that this is the captain's page.

It bears his name, his photos and it was created long before this airplane disappeared.

What is probably the most interesting is a post that was published on the Facebook page just after the Boston marathon bombings in which the person, which would appear to be him, wrote, "The U.S. is under attack again. Condolences to the deceased."

Also on these pages, we see a lot about atheism, and at the very least, one could conclude that he was sympathetic to atheism.

You're seeing his YouTube page there. That's a video to the documentary, "The God Delusion." There are also other videos posted where someone successfully argues against a cable news anchor here in the United States about the merits of atheism.

And we also see that he subscribed to a YouTube channel that is the Richard Dawkins Foundation YouTube channel.

We also see across Facebook and YouTube an affinity for repairing gadgets and home appliances, kind of do-it-yourself videos. On the YouTube page, a video about how to repair an air conditioning unit yourself, also how to repair the spray hose in a sink, how to do that yourself.

And then on Facebook, we see many images of doing this type of do-it- yourself at home, but what's causing the most political fodder from this social media footprint inside Malaysia are videos that he "Liked" about the Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

This has become very politicized in Malaysia, in part because just hours before this plane disappeared -- before it took off, rather -- this opposition leader who's been a thorn in the side of the ruling Malaysia party, he was actually sentenced to years in prison.

And so what Malaysian media are speculating is that maybe he was upset about that and that's why this plane disappeared, but there's no evidence that we've seen reported to indicate that, just assumptions made in the Malaysian press.

BALDWIN: All this information gleaned on the Internet.

Samuel Burke, keep looking for us. We appreciate it very much.

I want to get back to the families. Let's focus on this because they are going through this gut-wrenching ordeal. They don't know where their loved ones are, and so, we have this emotional protest today.

Others in China, they're waiting for word on their loved ones. Next, the toll this has taken on these families and how they're relying on one another just to cope.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just absolutely heart-wrenching scenes out of Kuala Lumpur this morning when frustrated family members of passengers onboard this flight stormed this government news briefing, they protested, demanding better information from investigators.

But after voicing their concerns, at least one of the protesters was a mother. She was actually dragged away out of this room, kicking and screaming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Untranslated foreign language)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: It is tough to watch. It is gut-wrenching.

She begged officials, and I'm quoting her, "to tell the truth, to stop ignoring the desperate pleas of these relatives there."

After she was screaming and pulled out of that room, I can tell you that Malaysian officials did apologize. They said that they will send a second, high-level team to Beijing to update passenger's families there.

But for these anxious relatives camped out in a hotel just waiting for information, the stress is building. And now they are exploring legal options.

CNN's Pauline Chiou.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULINE CHIOU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Every day, they shuffle in and out of the Lido Hotel's grand ballroom, which has turned into a briefing room. Ye Lun comes with his sister. Her husband was on the flight.

Ye Lun says --

YE LUN, BROTHER-IN-LAW OF PASSENGER (via translator): Every morning, she has hope when she comes to the briefing. She hopes for a miracle, then they simply make vague statements and she loses hope again. It's like this every single day.

CHIOU: But instead of concrete information, hundreds of passengers' relatives get little guidance, the stress, sadness, frustration boiling over with how they say Malaysia has handled the strategy.

This mother says, "This is my only child. We are respectable Chinese people. It's hard to control your emotions when you might have lost your loved ones. We want the truth."

In the early days, Malaysia Airline executives gave briefings to the families.

The Malaysian ambassador came twice last week to answer questions. The families turn to each other for support.

They check their smartphones for updates, and from their Beijing hotel rooms, watch the nightly news conferences out of Kuala Lumpur for any new leads.

Well into the second week of the search, families are now starting to ask what their legal options are, whether or not the plane is found.

Some families are talking about suing the Malaysian government over the delays and confusion in the search. Aviation litigation attorneys from the U.S. have shown up at the hotel.

KEKE FENG, AVIATION ATTORNEY: I have some contacts. (Inaudible) after this conference (inaudible) to have some further conversation.

CHIOU: As they consider what to do next, the families continue to wait and wait, their lives kept on hold.

The relatives have started a family self-help support group because they say they're not getting enough support from the Malaysian government or Malaysian Airlines.

They are taking down names and learning about each other's jobs so they can maximize each others skills during this nightmare of an experience.

Pauline Chiou, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Pauline, thank you.

And as those families keep waiting for answers, now this news, problems with communication and coordination are hampering the search. We know that 26 countries are helping here, but some of those resources aren't even being used.

Case in point, a U.S. Air crew sat on the tarmac for hours and hours just waiting for permission to take off to be able to help.

The P3 Orion onboard radar and scanning crew made it ideal for a water search, so its mission was this -- to hunt for the plane over the waters south of Java Island, but that mission has been on hold because it never got clearance from the Indonesian government.

That's just one example of the frustration here.

We will continue this special coverage with my colleague in Washington.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for watching. I'll be back here tomorrow.

In the meantime, "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.