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New Developments on Missing Malaysian Airline Flight 370

Aired March 21, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR. Wolf Blitzer, thank you. And great to be with you on this Friday. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Here we have at this hour two major developments, I need to pack along to you. And this of course now two-week long search for this missing Malaysia airlines flight 370 the those 239 souls on board.

Here's a question right now. Did volatile lithium batteries bring down this plane? You know, CNN has first reported this last week during the search. But today, we are now hearing officially from the CEO of Malaysia airlines confirming that these batteries were in fact in the cargo hold of this plane. The reason this is significant, you ask? Well, if you look back in 2010, a fatal crash was attributed to lithium ion batteries in a UPS cargo plane. We also know lithium battery components sparked a series of fires on board several Boeing 787s. In spite even with this knowledge, the airline is playing this news down today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AHMAD JAUHARI YAHYA, CEO, MALAYSIAN AIRLINES: (INAUDIBLE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And this questions now swirl around what was in the cargo hold of this plane. We are also learning more about this mysterious phone call made by the pilot, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah. Authorities are looking into reports that he made a call from his cell phone eight minutes before this flight took off. Investigators are now trying to find out who might have been on the other end of the call.

Let's go now to CNN's Evan Perez in Washington.

And Evan, what is really this hone in on this with ion batteries. What more do we know about that? What more do we know what is in the Cargo vault?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Brooke, we know that look, this is one of the first things that raise the eyebrows and concerns among U.S. officials who are looking at this situation from the day that flight 370 disappeared. And that is because they saw on the cargo manifest They were looking at the situation from the day flight 370 disappeared because they saw on the manifest that was provided by Malaysian authorities that there was a shipment of lithium batteries. We don't know how many, we don't know exactly who the shipper was and where it was going. We are told that they don't believe anything nefarious was at issue here. That there was nothing anything suspicious in the batteries being there. But we know that was one of the first things they were concerned about simply because as you mentioned in 2010, there was a fire on a UPS plane that was brought down, that they believe was brought down by a fire that was cause by these batteries which are a little more unstable than other batteries. And so, that is one of the things we do know at this point.

BALDWIN: so, we don't know how many. Do we know if there restrictions on carrying the batteries?

PEREZ: Well, there are. I mean, because of all these previous concerns and all these previous fires on its planes, some of them, they do have very strict restrictions, international agencies that do this type of thing say that you have to ship them in particular ways. You have to label them in particular ways. You have to wrap them in noncombustible material so that in case something happens, they don't catch fire. So, there is a lot of concern about that in the U.S. and internationally.

And the Malaysians say that they followed those restrictions. They say they were not hazardous. But the U.S. officials that we talked to says that that is still something that they are concerned about.

Now, obviously, it doesn't explain everything that went wrong with this flight. But it is something that they haven't crossed off their list -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. Evan Perez, thank you.

I want to stay on the subject on this lithium ion batteries here in this cargo hold on this plane. And if you don't really know what they are, these are batteries commonly used in cell phones and laptops. And so, this plane had a bunch of them on board.

So joining me now Airline Weekly managing partners Seth Kaplan, plus aviation expert in pilot, Bruce Buck Rodgers.

So, welcome to both of you. And Seth, just kicking it off with you, again, you heard from Malaysian airlines CEO saying that these batteries are not regarded as dangerous goods. Do you agree with that?

SETH KAPLAN, MANAGING PARTNERS, AIRLINE WEEKLY: Yes, as Evan said a minute ago, it's just something on the list. Very much just that. Very common thing certainly to ship batteries like that. Certainly, absolutely, there need to be precautions and there are typically are precautions. We don't yet know those details here. But Brooke, keep in mind, even if we determine something more about the batteries, it still takes a huge logical leap to think that those batteries caused a fire aboard this plane, plane that kept flying under control for a number of hours six hours later. It is pilot not trying to get the plane on the ground. It is a big logical leap.

BALDWIN: Well, at the same time, I guess, we don't know is that they how much longer. We don't know when the fire started. We don't know a lot of things.

Buck, here is my question because I hope you do know this. Of there, you know, we know that there were these lithium ion batteries in an cargo hold. What about the cargo hold itself?. I mean, I have to imagine there was some sort of protective shell or casing in case of a fire explosion. Can you tell me about that?

BRUCE "BUCK" RODGERS, COMMERCIAL AIRLINE PILOT: Sure. Absolutely, Brooke. First off, let's get back to these batteries. Those batteries, because they are hazardous cargo, there should have been manifest list that the airplane would have provided to the pilots before even the airplane tucks and then takes off. That list, we really needed to be published. We need to know how many batteries were on board. We need to know where they are located. And again, that will be on the hazardous manifest list where those batteries.

Now, as far as the suppression system goes, the 777 is very safe airplane, amazingly safe. If there was a cargo fire detected, the pilots would have been aware of that. There would have been red lights that went off in the cockpit and they would have pushed some buttons and suppressed the fire.

Now, we know that lithium ion batteries are very flammable and produce toxic fumes. So perhaps while they were extinguishing the fires, if that was the case, again we don't know.

BALDWIN: There a lot of ifs in this story, a lot of ifs.

RODGERS: Correct. And -- but we do know that the cargo system has a great fire suppression system. It also would evacuate the smoke ported outside the aircraft, if that was the case.

But we got to remember this. If there was some kind of smoke or fumes that were laminating and coming out of the cockpit area, that these things are very toxic, even if you put the auction mask on which would the very first thing this pilots would have done in this situation.

BALDWIN: Because bells and whistles, et cetera as you point out, would be going off.

RODGERS: Right. And the very step is to down you (INAUDIBLE) to establish core (ph) communications should be the next step. Even as you are doing this, you are being exposed. Your skin is being exposed to very toxic fumes possibly that could make you unconscious. And incidentally these fires could also cause circuit breakers to pop, for example, the ACARS. We know that that was shook up the transponder. That could have been affected by this as well. Fires are very bad on airplanes if that's the case.

BALDWIN: I can only imagine so.

Here is my next question. Because we mentioned this phone call that this pilot made, again, this is reporting by the "Sun Newspaper," but the Malaysian airlines CEO made, you know, mentioned of it this morning. They are looking in to this phone call that the pilot made some eight minutes before takeoff. To both of you, Seth and then Buck, is that unusual for a pilot or even a copilot to pick it up their cell phones before they head up in the air?

KAPLAN: It is not. There are regulations and quite frankly, I don't know what their regulations are in Malaysia per se, but certainly, you know, there are times when you are not supposed to do things that you do, just as passengers, you know, certainly do thing at times during flight, you know, that you are supposed to have your phone in airplane mode, even though you are now don't have it on pilots at times do things to -- they told me that. Again, one of those things on the list certainly don't look into it as they should. But, is that likely to be the smoking gun here? Probably not.

BALDWIN: Buck, do you agree?

RODGERS: I agree totally. You know, it's very common that we would use a cell phone to call dispatch or to call somebody on the ground to help us with pushing the airplane back. I mean, it doesn't -- I said it is very common if it happens occasionally. But we don't know where the phone call was made. So, don't think this -- I agree that this is not the smoking gun.

BALDWIN: OK. And then, finally, you know, we are bringing up the things we would like to know, we in the public or you as experts. And the last thing that a lot of people been call for is the transcript, right, between the cockpit and air traffic control because we know that that all right good night reportedly from the co-pilot happened at 1:19 in the morning but that was some, you know, 40 or some minutes after takeoff.

And so, my question would be, Buck, let me stay with you. Why young those are not being made public yet if there was conversation?

RODGERS: Well, yes. I think because this is such a sensitive situation and we don't know what happened. They are holding this closely. They roll at this to come out. It is public information. It is something that has been transmitted on the airwaves. Airwaves are public. If you had a radio you and you could tuned in, you could listen to it as it was taking place at that moment in time. So, we will have desperately that it is just going to be a matter of time until the Malaysian government decides to do so.

BALDWIN: Seth and Buck, you gentlemen are going to stick around because the questions keep coming not just from myself and my team, but from the viewers. So, We will take you, our viewers' questions about this plane, the new developments today. Send me a tweet @BrookeBCNN #at370Q. Those guys will stick around.

Coming up next, there are three million ship wrecks at the bottom of the ocean. That from an ocean expert who will join me live here in studio. He said finding this plane is looking like a needle in a haystack on the dark side of the moon.

Plus, the passengers. We will introduce you to many of them, their faces, their families, their personal stories, their lives, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back to or special coverage. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

You know, Malaysia is asking for hydro phones in its effort to find that plane. And we will show you right now what a hydro phone is. Here it is. It is basically a microphone hung from a float. And so, they lower this microphone into the ocean in hopes of hearing pings from that flight data recorder. The trouble is there not many hydro phones out there. We will get more on that in a minute.

But first, can we just read you a quote about this current search area. Quote "It is a terribly difficult place to search," say Alistair Dove, associate editor of DC (ph) news. He goes on, people say it's like searching for a needle in a haystack, but that haystack is on the dark side of the moon.

So, he is here with me now as is Chad Myers. So, welcome to both of you. And we are going to get to your map in a second. But we are just talking and you were saying to me earlier, you were trying to find some other place on this planet that was more difficult, that would a worse search area. You said you couldn't find one.

ALISTAIR DOVE, GEORGIA AQUARIUM: Yes. It's a tough place to work. I mean, you are talking about a very remote location, place where the surface conditions are really rough. The currents are strong. The winds are strong. The waves can be very high. And then on top of that you have approximately 12,000 feet of water underneath you. And if can go down to the bottom and explore down there, the pressure down there is enough to crush concrete. It is incredibly rough.

BALDWIN: OK. And here, we are talking about this metal plane. You, I keep seeing this map showing off the coast of Perth. You are putting it in better perspective for us.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It is like finding a penny in Manhattan. But the one penny, not all of them that are scatter. Just looking for one. So, you also talked to me on your e-mail about the ooze or the muck that is down there. How deep is this stuff? Could this plane literally sink all the way down if this muck and keep going?

DOVE: It would go down in to the muck a little bit. We call it ooze. That's technical word, we call it ooze. And it is the leftovers bodies of all the organisms that live in the surface layers of the ocean and overtime, it makes this sticks sticky mud on the bottom. And that's where if there were any wreckage that would be where it would found.

MYERS: It is when you lose your flip flop when you are walking on the sand and it turns into muck.

BALDWIN: Sure. But this part of the world, as we have been pointing out, I mean, can it be anything from three miles down, right, to 12 or 13,000 down feet. And also, in terms of the bottom of the ocean, you have said that there is something like three million, you know, ship wrecks on the ocean floor. The ship wrecks itself and only a tiny fraction of those have been found.

DOVE: That's right. The deep ocean that most talk about place to go and do research is really only a handful of submersibles that can go down there. So the majority of this kind of research or searching would have to be done with robot. But those have to be tethered to the ship. And that brings in another problem where the ship may be drifting in one direction and the submarine needs to be going in the other direction. And so, just simply staying on station and staying over the top of a search area becomes a significant challenge when you got 13,000 feet of cable in between.

BALDWIN: I keep getting the questions from viewers. Where are the submarines? Where are these submersibles? But that said, exactly right. I'm glad you addressed that.

DOVE: There are no military submarines can go to that tone of depth.

MYERS: Like squishing a tin can. That's what would happen if you put a hollow object down there other than a deep see submersible. That could blow all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana stretch.

Let me show you this. I know you love this graphic. And I think you will kind of get an idea. You know, OK. Four hours out, two hours at station and four hours back, it's a ten-hour flight for these airplanes and that's the size of the area that they actually searched to date. That's all we got. That little square.

And so, I'm sure they will be crisscrossing at all, but here's what we know about the bottom of the ocean here. One little stripe of slightly high rez (ph) data, right through the middle of here. (INAUDIBLE), but I will take to you over to California and show you what we know about this part of the ocean. Heck, I can almost find a giant clam here. I mean, there is so much better resolution where we live. And there is no resolution out there because we never thought we would need it, right Al? I mean, really.

DOVE: No. It's a very different part kind of environment. Very poorly surveyed area off the coast of Australia there and compared to the coast of California where the folks have been able to cover a lot of that territory. This area off the coast of Australia is half way to Antarctica. It is incredibly remote.

BALDWIN: What about the currents? And we keep going back to this and because we are talking so much about the possible debris yesterday, still nothing really about that. but it is just -- since this is such an incredibly remote area, the currents just and all kinds of directions.

DOVE: Yes. It's very complicate there. And there is one big current that goes all the way around Antarctica and that one just rips around in a good speed. But there is also a current that comes up the east coast of Australia. And you can always spin off the Eddies (ph) that is almost like a whirlpool that can track things and then move them over long distances. So, that makes the job even more difficult. BALDWIN: When you go in to the Georgia Aquarium down the road from Australia and Atlanta, there is this fact that is 98 percent of the world's oceans are unexplored. That's a big number.

DOVE: It is remarkable. I mean --

BALDWIN: Ninety-eight percent.

DOVE: Yes. People think a lot about space that they don't think about the inner space. All of the body of the oceans that have never been explore on this planet. And we tend to have this idea in the age of GPS that we got all these and we have surveyed everything there is to survey. It's just not true. There are vast tracks of the ocean that we know nothing about and the technical challenges of working in these places out, every bit as hard as working on the surface of Mars.

BALDWIN: And we know, as we were staying earlier, a lot more about the surface of Mars than the bottom of the ocean.

Alistair Dove, thank you so much and Chad Myers, thank you.

Well, coming up, could the missing plane have flown for hours and hours without anyone onboard being at the controls. It happened before. It actually has a term for it. They are called zombie flights. We will explain how something like that is possible ahead.

Also just in, we are learning exactly how much the United States is spending as in dollars and cents on the search for the missing plane. That answer as we continue our CNN special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We have some new information right on the U.S. component of the jet liner search.

So for that, we want to go quickly to Barbara Starr at the Pentagon.

And so, Barbara, how much is this costing?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Pentagon work has now calculated it so far on the search since the plane went down, the U.S. military has spent $2.5 million, they tell us. And they budgeted $4 million for it, which they think that will carry them through early April in case it laughs that long.

This is, you know, always a very tough issue because U.S. military forces are out there anyhow on deployment training all the time. So, it is really it's hard to calculate what this is costing them in terms of what they wouldn't already be doing.

And of course, it is a very sensitive issue because what really matters is finding the fate of those 239 people onboard the aircraft. But it's part of the international coalition now, 25, 26 nations doing everything they can to look for flight 370.

BALDWIN: And just quickly, if and when they are still searching and they hit the $4 million ceiling, they will have to readdress as they go?

STARR: Yes. I think that's fair to say. Right now, certainly right from President Obama down, the U.S. has publicly said it will do everything they can to help find whatever it can that is perhaps debris from the plane or the fate of the plane. And that's a really good point, Brooke. Because besides what the U.S. military is doing, besides what other nations are doing to help, the U.S. law enforcement community and the FBI, the FAA, the NTSB, all lending a hand with their technical expertise to try to help the Malaysians.

BALDWIN: OK. Barbara Star, thank you so much at the Pentagon here.

And breaking now on CNN, we are now learning more about what the copilot was saying about ground control before losing communications. These are things he reportedly said before that phrase. We keep going back to it 1:19 in the morning. All right. Good night. Does that provide any more clues? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just about the bottom of the hour, I'm Brooke Baldwin. We are following these two big headlines right now on the hunt for flight 370.

Here is what we know. First off, lithium batteries were in the cargo hold of this plane. This is something CNN has been reporting. We first reported it last week. These batteries, they are known for being very volatile. Case and point, back in 2010, a fatal crash was attributed to lithium ion batteries on a UPS cargo plane. And we know lithium batteries power components also sparked a series of fires onboard several Boeing 787s.

The other big development we are following for you right now that reports of the mysterious phone call by the pilot eight minutes before this plane took off in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysian authority is saying they are now trying to figure out exactly who might have been on the other end of that call.

A chilling new theory is also emerging here. Could deadly fumes or a shortage of oxygen have turned flight 370 into a so-called zombie plane.

Let's go to Martin Savage. He is back in that virtual cockpit in Canada for a demonstration of this theory. Of course, he is back with Mitchell Casado, the flight instructor there.

And so, Martin, just walk me through exactly what would happen if this turn into this so-called zombie flight.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right. Well, let's go back to 370 which was two weeks ago. And they pick it out from Kuala Lumpur. They are on the way to Beijing. And now, they have reached the (INAUDIBLE) altitude. And this is the time, we all know, as a passenger because you are going to hear this.