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Five Planes Find No Debris

Aired March 21, 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: Thanks a lot. Have a great weekend.

NEWSROOM starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, intense yet inconclusive.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The first aircraft is on the scene. We have no sightings yet.

COSTELLO: Search planes scouring the sea. American and Australian forces laser focused on finding this debris.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't see any wreckage on the surface of the ocean. If it's out there, then yes, I am confident we'll be able to find it.

COSTELLO: To the depth of the ocean floor. And a robot that might hold the key in finding Flight 370.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They can go up and down mountains.

COSTELLO: Looking for a beacon of hope.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's about the most inaccessible spot that you can imagine on the face of the earth.

COSTELLO: In a sea of possibilities. Was it hijacked? Was there an emergency?

A special edition of NEWSROOM starts now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Another day of disappointment in the search for that missing airliner, the cause, a motive, if there was one, still unknown. It's now been 14 days since the plane vanished and adding to the urgency, the dying batteries on the flight recorders. Just over 15 days from now the pings designed to help search crews locate them will start fading away.

This morning crews were back out in the air and on the water scouring the remote area of the Indian Ocean for the object spotted on satellite images, unfortunately, they found nothing today. It is nighttime in Australia now and they're done searching from the air for the day.

CNN's Andrew Stevens is in Perth, Australia, the hub of the crew.

And, Andrew, the weather was good today. We were hoping for something.

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Carol. The weather was better than good, it was excellent. Visibility really, really good out over that search zone, but the five aircraft who came out there all came back empty handed. Not a sighting of anything resembling a piece of debris which fits the -- what we know about those two pieces of objects lying in the water somewhere in that zone.

A very disappointing day. The pilots themselves expressing disappointment. Also saying they're ready to get out there and do it all again tomorrow.

Now what we have been hearing today to add to that disappointment is the Australian prime minister, Carol, he seems to be dialing back a bit. You remember 24 hours ago, a little bit longer than that, he said that there was credible new information about these objects. Today he was saying well, admitting, they could actually be a shipping container. He says, "I had to get that information out there because the families of the people who are missing deserve to know what we know but, yes, it could be just a shipping container, nothing to do with that flight."

So disappointment with the Australian government as well that they seem to be dialing back, all around no progress. And the optimism that was here just 24 hours ago, the buzz is now really fading.

COSTELLO: That's so disappointing to hear because the pings from those black boxes, the batteries are about to die. What are they saying about that?

STEVENS: Well, they're saying exactly that. We have a window of opportunity here. We've only got a little more than 15 days to find something which we can link back to where that wreckage may be.

The challenges, Carol, they are huge. Not only is it that four hour flight we've talked about just to get to the target zone which means that planes can only stay over that site for about two hours, it's the depth. Three miles deep some of the water around there. It's the currents. It's what's taken those objects, maybe 100, maybe 200 miles away from where they originated.

And there's also this convergence of plastics, it's called a gyre, where you get a lot of debris, a lot of floats and a lot of rubbish in the water which makes it difficult to distinguish in some areas just what is what. So these enormous challenges still facing the search crews. And as you say, time is ticking away.

COSTELLO: All right. Andrew Stevens reporting live from Australia.

As Andrew said, we need help. So Malaysia is tweeting for it -- for help, I should say. Minister Hishammuddin Hussein tweeted an SOS for high tech hydrophones. The minister twitted, "We'll also speak with the U.S. secretary of defense tonight to further request specialist assets."

Now one of those assets as I said was a hydrophone. It's basically a microphone for underwater use. The main part of a hydrophone is its transducer. The transducer converts sound waves into electrical energy that can then be amplified making it easier to listen for the pings coming from those black boxes.

CNN's Barbara Starr joins us with more now from the Pentagon.

Good morning.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, that phone call was scheduled to take place just a short time ago as I look at the clock and we expect a readout here at the Pentagon.

The Malaysian minister, indeed, asking for the possibility of two things, the hydro phone technology you're talking about and also underwater remote piloted vehicles. But -- and it's a big but, there are just simple limitations to this technology. They need to find a debris field first. They need to be able to narrow it down. Because when you put this kind of technology into the water you have to have a particular place to look. You can't just throw it into the water across, you know, 23,000 square kilometers so you have to find the debris field.

You have to narrow down where the debris is, and look at the currents, the time, the winds and calculate backwards where you think the data recorders might be in the water and then you bring in this technology.

So this is something that everyone involved in the search is very well aware of. They're just not there yet for this type of technology.

As for the hydro phones, several countries, including the U.S. who are searching have that capability. They can use it. Not clear what the Malaysians would put it on and what they would send down to the deep southern Indian Ocean. That for the hydrophones on the remote piloted vehicles. The U.S. Navy has some very unique capabilities to go very deep in the ocean. But there will also be once they find debris, once they find the location for the black boxes, there is commercial salvage capability and the Malaysians may call on that -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Barbara Starr, reporting live form the Pentagon. Thank you.

Also new today, Malaysia Airlines confirming a report you saw first on CNN. The flight's cargo did include lithium ion batteries, the power pack used in cell phones and laptops. They are known to sometimes overheat, and even burst into flames and have caused previous crashes. CNN justice correspondent Pamela Brown first reported on this concern last week. As I said, Malaysian officials commented on it this morning.

Tell us more, Pamela.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Carol. So last Friday we pointed out that investigators are looking into whether lithium batteries right here, spare lithium battery, which may have been linked to plane crashes in the past, may be connected to the disappearance of Flight 370.

It's believed those lithium batteries were in the cargo and for the first time this morning two weeks after the plane went missing, Malaysia Airline officials acknowledged that in fact they were in the cargo but they tried to tamp down the notion that they could have caused a fire on Flight 370. In fact the CEO of Malaysia Airlines defended his company's handling of the batteries. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AHMAD JAUHARI YAHYA, MALAYSIA AIRLINE CEO: They are in fact, as recommended by (INAUDIBLE). So we do check them. Check them several times, make sure the packing is right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So I want to give you another look here. This right here. This is a lithium battery. You might recognize it from what you find in your laptop or cell phone as you mentioned, Carol. And in fact passengers are banned from bringing spare lithium batteries like this in checked luggage. And that's because these batteries are more easily combustible than other types of batteries and they can spark fires, which we've seen in other plane crashes. They have been linked to plane crashes.

In fact there was a UPS plane crash years ago and it's believed that the lithium batteries caused a fire on that plane and caused the crash.

So, again, though, Carol, if the lithium batteries did cause a fire on Flight 370, it doesn't explain other anomalies, like why the plane kept flying for seven hours. If it caused a fire, the plane likely wouldn't be able to do that.

COSTELLO: Exactly. We'll discuss this more in just a few minutes with Pamela Brown. Thanks so much for that report.

Joining me now, Miles O'Brien, PBS "Newshour" science correspondent and pilot, and Steve Wallace, CNN aviation analyst and former director of the FAA'S Office of Investigation.

Welcome, gentlemen.

MILES O'BRIEN, SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWSHOUR: Hello, Carol.

Good morning.

COSTELLO: Miles, we're bringing up lithium batteries because the Malaysian government addressed them today, but is it really likely that these batteries were to blame? They were being transported. They weren't being used, in other words.

O'BRIEN: Well, lithium batteries have a long history of, you know, sort of going uncontrolled and causing very hot fires so this is nothing we should overlook. The idea that the crew was somehow incapacitated is still an idea that we've been talking about quite a bit.

You know, if you think about a crew that might have a bad idea on their mind, if you will, if it was a suicide mission, there's no reason to fly seven hours on a suicide mission. You would probably put it in the water very quickly as they did about 15 years ago with EgyptAir Flight 990.

If it was a terror mission, why didn't they turn around and fly into a skyscraper. They're in Kuala Lumpur. So the incapacitated crew idea has a lot of traction. There's still a lot of holes and concerns. For example, if there really was a smoldering fire, it's very likely the crew would have an opportunity to get a radio call off and say there was a problem. But it's an idea we need to think about.

COSTELLO: And, Steve, you were an FAA investigator. How seriously would FAA investigators take the fact that lithium batteries were on board that plane?

STEVE WALLACE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, it's a bit like what we heard about stolen passports on day one. So it raises a red flag, but miles is exactly right. First of all, there are very strict rules now about packaging and shipping lithium batteries and as Pam Brown referred to, there was a horrific accident with UPS with a modern 747 400 attributed to lithium batteries.

I completely agree with Miles, there are o several ways, VHF radio, they were in good contact, or even setting an emergency code in the transponder to send out a distress signal and that wasn't done.

COSTELLO: You know, it seems we keep going up round and round in circles, doesn't it, Miles? Like one theory we throw up and then somebody shoots it down, and then another theory comes along. This lithium battery theory came out before and now it's back. It's really frustrating.

O O'BRIEN: Well, it's a giant mystery and frankly the release of information has been rather chaotic and has been in many cases incomplete. As I've said repeatedly I would like to hear the air tragic control recordings. The tapes, the conversations between the controllers and the crew. Was there only one pilot talking? There was change-off.

Was there some sort of stress in their voices? All these things we haven't heard and that's just for starters. We haven't seen the maintenance records for the aircraft, for example. Have investigators talk to some of the people who flew with this crew on prior flights, the previous 10 flights? Were they doing anything unusual? There's a lot of gaps in our knowledge here right that would help us.

COSTELLO: So the -- we know the NTSB is involved, Steve. Do you think that NTSB investigators have seen those things?

WALLACE: Well, Miles is right, the transparency of this investigation and the release of information has been terribly slow. And this investigation was -- I mean, initially in the U.S. you'd have an organizational meeting on day one and parties and it would all be organized. This investigation has, in my view, been very disorganized. It's getting better. It has broken all records for speculation and for showing the agony of families.

Let me just add one last point here that might be kind of interest is that we're right here at the Vernal Equinox. So the days are exactly the same length in the northern and southern hemispheres. Most of the search area is 12 times zones from the eastern United States away. So people who are curious about when it's daylight there basically when it's dark here it's daylight there, and vice versa, rule of thumb for people who are wondering when the airplanes can see the debris.

COSTELLO: Yes. And supposedly this debris is in one of the remotest parts of the world. In fact, Chinese warships are now on the way including the Snow Dragon. That's a ship that breaks up ice. The ice breaker part gets to me, Miles, because it means they'll perhaps search closer to the south pole and it can't be easy to find things through ice.

O'BRIEN: Well, I suppose, if wreckage did land on top of the ice, that might ease the effort of the searchers. But yes, if you're talking about going through ice breakers to find stuff that might be under the ice, that's a task that's hard for even me to get an idea of how hard that would be. Put it that way.

COSTELLO: I agree. Miles O'Brien, Steve Wallace, many thanks to both of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, search planes find no signs today of that floating debris. We'll talk about the search area and why it's been so difficult for them -- Tom.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Carol, here's one of the problems. Ever since this plane disappeared, if it went down particularly in this area, the parts of it had been on the mood, they're not just trying find them, they're trying to chase them down and the location changes by the hour.

We'll have a lot more details in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Australian and U.S. planes completed their Flight 370 search mission today with no sign found on satellites. Get this, though, searchers actually covered 9,000 miles by air and sea, which sounds like a lot until you take into account the entire search area. Let's bring in Tom Foreman to talk us through this.

Tell us why this search is so difficult. Hi, Tom.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

You know, you were touching on why it's so difficult a little bit ago when you were talking about the area and the climate of this area. This is not merely the southern arc of this. This is the particular area where they're looking off the coast of Australia is sort of the dividing line or close to the dividing line between the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean which is the ocean that goes down to the south pole and Antarctica.

That's why the high tech planes and ships have to be out there working so frantically right now because, just as it became spring here, it is just turning to fall there, and that will not help a bit in what they're having to deal with. One of the things they have to deal with is a steady, steady, steady easterly current in this area.

To give you an idea, between the winds and the currents now, talk about 14 days out, this debris, if this plane went down there, even if it's on the surface and even if there's not too much glare or too many white caps to make you not see it could be moving at essentially a steady walking pace, Carol.

So in the period of time we're talking about because it's moving 24 hours a day, this may have moved 1,100 miles.

COSTELLO: Wow.

FOREMAN: That's a tremendous distance. So even if you look in the right place now, an hour later it is the wrong place and substantially the wrong place. That's why they keep moving the zones.

And when you go beyond, if you start talking about below the surface, that's when it's really get complicated.

Barbara Starr was talking to you about terrific information about why this is so complicated. When you get down to the bottom, you can't go down and scan vast, vast areas. If you know where you're looking you can bring in a side scan sonar which is what they did through Air France.

This throws out waves to the side of sound, sonar waves. It comes back. What it will create out of that is a 3D relief map of the bottom of the ocean floor like this, and then you can actually look at it and see anything in there that you might think would be wreckage, but you simply cannot deploy these over a vast area.

I keep saying to people it's like this, if you lost your keys in your home, you could walk through your home and look for them and you have a chance of finding them. When you start talking about specialized things underwater, side scan sonar, you can get a very clear picture but it's like searching your home through a soda straw. Yes, you can get it but that's not how you start. You must have a clue. So all the work up there in that stormy weather and in those rushing currents, that's why that's so important, because if they don't have a clue up there, they really can't even begin to search down here -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Tom Foreman, thanks so much.

Let's imagine for a moment, if you will, that that search area for Flight 370 can be narrowed to, say, 5,000 square miles. A robot sub may be brought in.

As CNN's Randi Kaye reports, the sub works like a lawn mower to capture images from the floor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This robot submarine may hold the key to finding Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. It's called the Remus 6000 and was developed by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod. It's 13 feet long, weighs almost a ton, and costs about $2.5 million.

Mike Purcell is the principal engineer here.

MIKE PURCELL, WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION: They can go up and down mountains that are up to 40 degrees in slope. They are very stable so you get really good data almost all the time.

KAYE: Why would this robot find something that the U.S. Navy and search teams from more than two dozen different countries haven't been able to find? First of all, the torpedo shaped vehicle can reach depths up to 6,000 meters or more than 3.5 miles below the surface and it can survey wide swathes of the ocean floor using what's called side scan sonar.

PURCELL: They send a sound pulse that's sort of a fan beam out to the side. It will travel out almost half a mile from the vehicle and it bounces off the sea floor and we get a reflection back to the vehicle.

KAYE: They call the process mowing the lawn because it works its assigned grid back and forth before returning to the surface with images captured on a high resolution camera. It's all done at the touch of a laptop on dry land.

(on camera): How would you tell the difference? I mean, how would you know if it's a fish or a rock or plane engine?

PURCELL: I think that you can tell from return. Manmade objects, metal down there on the sea floor responds very strongly.

KAYE (voice-over): The team here hasn't been asked yet to help search for the plane in the ocean, but if they are, it won be the first time. The Remus 6000 was called on to find Air France 447 after it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in June 2009. Two years later a search team from Woods Hole located the wreckage of the jet about 2.5 miles beneath the surface after months searching, something only possible because of this underwater robot.

This is the initial shot of the Air France debris field captured by the Remus 6000.

PURCELL: There were obvious signs that this was from the plane.

KAYE: One team member first noticed a backpack on the ocean floor belonging to a passenger. Closer images revealed the plane's engine, one of the wings, even the landing gear.

(on camera): Before you put one of these vehicles in the water, you have to narrow down the search area. The team from here searched 5,000 square miles for the Air France flight and it still took them more than 100 attempts to find the debris, and that is just a fraction of the area they're still looking at for Flight 370.

(voice-over): And while the team here with their underwater robots is ready for the call if it comes, what they hope to discover more than anything are survivors.

Randi Kaye, CNN, Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Coming up next in the NEWSROOM. I'm joined by the officer in charge of the United States role in the new search area. We're going to look at the massive scope of that operation. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Pilots reported no sightings of potential debris from the missing plane after searching remote waters in the Indian Ocean today. Air crews were looking for two objects spotted by radar 1,400 miles off the coast of Perth, Australia.

Australia's prime minister gave an update on that search a couple of minutes ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: We've got five aircraft that will be searching the area. We've been throwing everything we've got at that area to try to learn more about what this debris might be. It's about the most inaccessible spot you can imagine on the face of the earth. If there's anything down there, we will find it. We owe it to the families of those people to do no less.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: As for the search over land, Malaysia's acting transportation minister says Kazakhstan has found no sign of the missing plane in its territory either.

So, the focus this morning has been on a U.S. search plane, the P8 Poseidon searching the south Indian Ocean. It's part of an operation to locate potential debris spotted Sunday on Australian radar. CNN spoke earlier this morning with the officer in charge of P-8 operations in Perth, Lieutenant Commander Adam Schantz.

LT. CMDR. ADAM SCHANTZ, U.S. NAVY: We were challenged with the weather yesterday. Today we had much better conditions out there so today's going good. We're covering a lot of area today and getting a lot of searching done.

Generally when you're looking at the ocean it's rather monotonous and it looks the same. Anything that's not supposed to be out there generally stands out. Looking for any kind of debris, anything that's not manmade -- or that's not natural that's manmade out there is something that can always be a clue.

In terms of any wreckage on the surface of the ocean and it's out there, yes, I am confident we would be able to find it.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, the Australian prime minister said today -- he called it one of the most inaccessible places on earth that you were having to go search. What are the challenges that you would say your search team and the other search teams really are facing?

SCHANTZ: The biggest one is extreme remoteness of the area.