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Debris Spotted; Satellite Spots Debris; Flight 370: Families Desperate Waiting Games

Aired March 20, 2014 - 09:30   ET

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

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But once we're in the air, the thing about the simulator, we can make it do whatever we want. But we actually always have to take off. It's part of just synchronizing everything with the computer, hence why we started on the ground. But once in the air, we'll be able to fast forward and take you to the area where the debris is believed to have been found and find out, OK, is it feasible? Could the plane, with that fuel load, have made it? But I've got to warn you, there are a lot of things that interfere -- weather, winds, all of that, altitude could impact the fuel range. So it's a test. We'll see how far we can go. And the next time you come back to us, we should be in the area where that debris was found.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I have a question for Mitchell before you go, though.

Mitchell, from a pilot's perspective, that area is so remote. There's nothing out there. As a pilot, what goes through your mind when you think about that?

MITCHELL CASADO, PILOT TRAINER, 777 COCKPIT SIMULATOR: I would think a lot about running out of gas. There's such few options. As long range as this aircraft is, it's a long way to any suitable airport out there. There are some small islands, you know, that you could possibly land at, but that would really be pushing your -- the limits of the airplane. So I would really be worried about running out of gas.

SAVIDGE: You know, just to give you a sense of how far this plane can go, it can go 16 to 18 hours if it were full. It was not. Incredible range.

COSTELLO: Yes, I think that, from Kuala Lumpur to this place, where this debris was found, and, again, we don't know if it's debris from the plane, but it's about 2,800 miles. As the plane would begin running out of fuel, alarms would probably sound. What would that be like?

CASADO: What would it be like if the plane was running out of fuel?

COSTELLO: Yes.

SAVIDGE: I mean, first of all, you've got every indicator. You would see -

CASADO: Yes.

SAVIDGE: You know, you'd see fuel consumption here. That's carefully monitored. You know, you'd be well aware in advance. It isn't like something that's going to sneak up on you. There isn't sort of a fuel meter that says at the "e," but you can watch the rate of consumption. You're always calculating as is the computer.

CASADO: Absolutely.

SAVIDGE: So it's going to alert you.

CASADO: Yes. So you would see well in advance that you're running out of gas. The airplane is going to start talking to you that the fuel is low once it gets below a certain point. And it's just - I mean you run out of gas, you run out of gas.

SAVIDGE: Yes. Eventually -

CASADO: Yes.

SAVIDGE: You know, physics takes over. You will run out of gas. When you do, depending on the altitude, you still have a great deal of distance this aircraft can cover, even without engines running.

CASADO: That's right. Yes, it becomes a glider at that point. So there's a very - these lift -- these wings are designed for a very high amount of lift. So you're going to be able to glide hundreds of miles with no engines. But eventually, sooner or later, you are going to hit.

COSTELLO: And then what - I don't know. I don't even want to ask you this next question, because really don't want that image in my mind. So I'll let you go. We'll check back with you. Martin Savidge, Mitchell Casado, many thanks.

SAVIDGE: All right. Thanks, Carol.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, possible debris found in the Indian Ocean, providing what officials say is a credible lead in the search for Flight 370. But experts say it's far from a sure thing.

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COSTELLO: The Australian defense minister says the search is now, quote, "in one of the most isolated parts of the world." Some 1,400 miles off the southwest coast of Australia, in an area known for high winds and rough seas. Joining me now, former TSA administrator and Secret Service Director John Magaw and CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI Assistant Director Tom Fuentes.

Welcome, gentlemen.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Good morning, Carol.

JOHN MAGAW, FORMER TSA ADMINISTRATOR: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

So, John, one of the pieces of this debris is 79 feet long. That's roughly the size of a tractor trailer. An Australian maritime expert says there's all kinds of debris in this area because things fall overboard all the time. What do you think?

MAGAW: Well, it seems fairly large to me to fall over. And so hopefully, you know, as an investigator you're thinking, this may be something that will help us. It's very, very large and pretty hard to fall over. It would have to be put over by somebody on another ship or something.

COSTELLO: So you're saying it's likely not a tractor trailer and it's likely -- may possibly be something valuable in the search for this plane?

MAGAW: Well, I think that that's a very good possibility in my mind.

COSTELLO: I'm going to ask you a rather grisly question. As the plane hit the water, wouldn't it crash into many smaller parts? Would there be a part so large left over?

MAGAW: Well, if it hit the water at an angle, from my understanding, if it hit from an angle, it would - you know, it's like hitting concrete, but it would still penetrate way down. But the initial impact would be very, very hard. And so a piece of something like a wing, if they're saying it's that big, could very well either stay on the surface or come back up very quickly.

COSTELLO: Yes, and the reason they think it might be a wing is because the wing of a jetliner like that is about 78 feet long.

Tom, the Australian prime minister, though, he says, too, this is a good lead and they're throwing all the resources they have into this. But it does beg the question, do they know, do investigators know something we don't?

FUENTES: Now that's a very good question, Carol. I watched the coverage last night and coverage of that press conference -- not press conference but the release of his statement to his parliament and I thought that, you know -- and then the coverage afterward. I thought that it was very optimistic that we have almost probability that that's part of the plane and it led to the probability that it was going to be a matter of going out there and grabbing those pieces and then determining if they were from the plane and then trying to determine where they may have floated from to identify the original crash area.

Then you hear later that it's a four-day-old photograph. And with those turbulent waters, it could have - you know, it could be very difficult to locate under the best of conditions. And then the distance that the planes have to fly 1,500 miles can only stay on search or on station for a shorter period of time before they have to return 1,500 miles. And then the limitations of daylight and weather. So I thought - you know, what I heard this morning sounded from probability to possibly and much less optimistic, I'll put it that way. And I'm just trying to look at this realistically and not be emotional in this, which we all are to some extent, and say, you know, are we going to even find these pieces?

COSTELLO: Right. And, John, we understand that a Norwegian ship is in the area. Of course it's nighttime now in Australia, so there's nothing really that people on board that ship can do. But at least it's in the area but it still has to find this debris. It hasn't found the actual debris. But let's say it does. Let's say it lucks out - it lucks out and does. That's still -- they still have to get it out of the water some way and that can't be easy.

MAGAW: Well, I don't think we would expect them to get it out of the water. I think we would expect them to help us with the identification in terms, is it pieces of the aircraft? And then we would -- or the investigators, whichever country would be the closest, would get a ship out there that has a deck on it that then the helicopters could fly on and off of and you could do some kind of retrieval work at that point and better identification. But you're going to have to have a sea deck out there. You can't - you can't fly these planes until they're almost out of fuel and then you have to turn around and go back because you only have a few minutes to search. We've got to get a deck out there that has helicopters and that on it that can go for quite a few miles and so it would be a seaborne airport.

COSTELLO: And then let's say even after they do all of that and they've determine that this debris came from this plane, now they have to search underneath the water. The ocean in that part of the world is very, very deep, Tom, and, you know, I've heard they had to get these like - these special robot submarines to go underneath the ocean to search down - you know, down, down deep in the -- and they move very slowly, like four miles per hour.

FUENTES: Right.

COSTELLO: Sort of like a lawn mower (INAUDIBLE). That just seems impossible to me.

FUENTES: Right. An CNN had an individual on yesterday morning that talked about, there's only about 30 of those robotic submersibles in the whole world. And that if you had 20 of them searching, you know, how long it would take. He stated that he could only search an area the size of Manhattan in New York City. So you would have to really narrow down where that plane went in the water for that to even be, you know, a close possibility of having one of those find that.

Now, if they actually recover this debris and determine that it came from the plane, then they're going to be trying to, you know, have all of the experts of ocean waves and currents and climate and wind, surface wind and try to backtrack where it actually may have entered the water. But by the time they get to that point, it could be 13, 14, 15 days from the date of the -- from the night of the incident, the night the plane disappeared. So where -- if you find the pieces, where were those pieces two weeks ago?

COSTELLO: Right.

Tom Fuentes, John Magaw, thanks so much.

MAGAW: My pleasure.

FUENTES: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Still to come, for some, the disappearance of Flight 370 has drawn parallels to Egypt Air Flight 990. That jetliner crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 1999 killing everyone on board. I'll talk to a man who lost his loved ones aboard that flight.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unfortunately, with the weather conditions as you experienced on the flight, we're unable to locate any wreckage or debris but other aircraft are continuing to search up until last light tonight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: For the families of those missing on Flight 370, the wait is of course, agonizing; fruitless searches and leads that go nowhere and now their best search at a possible clue hidden under the dark of night for at least nine more hours.

Very few know the desperation of this waiting game but one of them is James Brokaw. He lost his father and step mother when Egypt Air Flight 990 crashed in 1999. It took investigators days to find the plane off the coast of Nantucket. The NTSB said the co-pilot switched off the auto pilot and deliberately crashed the plane into the Atlantic Ocean. As that plane went down, the co-pilot repeated, "I rely on God" more than 11 times.

James Brokaw joins me now. Good morning.

JAMES BROKAW, FATHER AND STEPMOTHER DIED IN EGYPTAIR CRASH: Good morning. I'm pleased to be with you.

COSTELLO: Oh thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.

The investigation into what happened to Egypt Air Flight 990 in your mind remains unresolved. Why?

BROKAW: To me it's quite firmly resolved. The -- the statement by the co-pilot that you mentioned is, in my mind, a red herring. There's nothing on the cockpit voice recorder that indicts Gameel Al- Batouti. What's not on the recorder any mayday call, any clearing of altitudes below the aircraft, any response to the captain -- to the captain's question of what happened? And together with the data inputs make it quite clear that the airplane was deliberately destroyed and the relief first officer is the culprit.

But that's not the reason I'm here today. I want to say quite directly to anybody who has lost someone aboard Malaysian 370 that I and we, the families of EgyptAir 990, are right there with you. We know exactly what it's like to lose someone into thin air and to wait for any confirmation whatsoever of -- of their demise. They -- those families are facing what many of us faced and which is immediate and devastating, economic as well as emotional consequences.

So that means, for us, that meant that many people were forced to sell their homes or the homes of their parents who they lost aboard the airplane immediately. There were some people who were stay-at-home moms in -- in Scottsdale, Arizona, who needed to relocate immediately to Egypt because their husband, their sole means of support was aboard the airplane.

So the reason that I'm here today is to speak as directly as I can to the Malaysian government and to its insurers that you need to take care of your families. You need to do so by immediate and substantial across the board economic support. You cannot afford to wait for the families to come to you.

COSTELLO: So far, describe how you think the Malaysian government has handled the families.

BROKAW: Well they've had -- the only information I have about that is the state of the investigation which has been from outward appearances quite disordered and rather chaotic and I think understandably so. Because it's an extremely -- it's an extremely unusual and, at this point, confusing situation.

But the thing for everybody to keep in mind -- and again I'm speaking directly to those families affected, it's easy to vilify the airline but the thing to keep in mind is that -- is that they want very -- they want desperately to do the right thing. So the way for the airline to recover its image is to -- is to conspicuously prominently afford every generous measures to the families of Malaysian Airlines 370.

COSTELLO: James Brokaw thank you for your insight. I really appreciate your joining me this morning.

BROKAW: It's a pleasure to be with you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the partner of flight 370 Phillip Wood compares the investigators well to a bunch of teenage girls. She is angry. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It is now 13 days since the Malaysian plane disappeared -- an eternity for family members desperate to hear word of their loved ones. American Phillip Wood is among the passengers on board. His partner Sarah Bajc appeared on CNN's "NEW DAY" a short time ago and talked about the discovery of possible debris.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH BAJC, PARTNER OF PHILIP WOOD: It strikes me as just one more lead that may or may not come true, so it's enough to make us all anxious again after a couple days of quiet. But you know, I'm cautiously pessimistic that it's not a piece of the plane. So I keep hoping that somebody took this flight for a reason which means they would have preserved it and tried to hide it some place, try take it some place.

So if this debris is part of that plane, then it kind of dashes that wishful thinking to pieces. So I really hope it's not a part of the plane. But you know, if it is, then at least we can go down another path of deciding that maybe -- you know maybe we need to start preparing for another scenario instead.

I don't necessarily think the people investigating the situation are particularly caring about what the families feel like; they care about finding the plane. And you know that's probably as it should be. They should keep their focus there.

But you know the way the international investigators have been working together is kind of like a bunch of teenage girls running around a locker room all trying not to show each other what they've got, right? It's kind of a false sense of modesty. And if, you know, we would have had a little more disclosure and a little bit more open cooperation earlier in the cycle, we might be at a completely different place now. I mean 13 days. That's a long time to have something so big just disappear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Bajc says her intuition still tells her that Wood and the other passengers are alive.

We'll be right back.

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