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Mystery of Flight 370; "All Lives Lost"; Search for the Plane Itself Continues

Aired March 24, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Three heartbreaking words for the families of Flight 370: all lives lost.

Some relatives, you see here taken out on emergency stretchers, some screaming, cursing the media, Malaysian authorities.

The prime minister delivering the awful news some hours ago, but not before a text message went out to these families. In part, it read -- quote -- "We have to assume beyond all reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived."

But, of course, the question now, where is the evidence? Where is the debris from the plane? One family member telling CNN, wrought proof, they're still holding out hope.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIMAL SHARMA, BROTHER OF FLIGHT 370 PASSENGER: The only thing I hope, they don't give up the search. I suppose I want for see something from the seas. I don't know why. I just want to see some debris off the aircraft and the black box to know what exactly happened, because there are too many unanswered questions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Too many unanswered questions.

But British company Inmarsat, who we're now learning tracked this plane into the southern corridor, say their data is pretty solid. And now we have this strongly worded statement. This is from the families, MH370 Passenger Family Committee. I'm just going to read it to you from my inbox here.

"Eighteen days since Malaysia Airlines announced MH370 went missing on March 8, the airline, Malaysian government and Malaysian military have been keeping putting off, holding back and covering up the truth of the incident as well as trying to deceive passengers' families and people of the entire world. Such despicable act not only emotionally and physically fooled and destroyed us families of the 154 passengers, but also misled and delayed search efforts and wasted most precious lifesaving time."

It goes on: "If our 154 relatives about lost their lives due to such reasons, then Malaysia Airlines, Malaysian government and Malaysian military are the real murderers that killed them. Hereby, as family of those 154 Chinese passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines MH370, we bring the strongest condemnation and protest against Malaysia Airlines, Malaysia government and Malaysian military and will carry out every measure to go after their unforgivable guilt."

David McKenzie, I'm going to you out of that.

He's live from that hotel with more.

David McKenzie, words like the real murderers that killed them, they are not holding back.

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They're not holding back, Brooke.

And you can understand the anger after all these days of waiting here in this hotel, cooped up, often saying they're not getting the information they want and they need, and obviously holding out hope, as you said, to any kind of information that could indicate their loved ones are alive after this ordeal.

And that seems to have come in some ways callously through a text message, in other ways as best airlines could. That hope has been extinguished, so, very angry reactions. I think it's worth mentioning of course at this time that it's not just the family members here that are mourning or starting to grieve.

Of course, Malaysia Airlines had crew and passengers on board. They would also be feeling this right now, as well as people across the world who are linked to the passengers and crew on board, so an extremely difficult time and you can understand the lashing out by the passengers' families here, who feel they have been treated badly.

BALDWIN: We heard from the one husband of a passenger that he wants proof. And so we know there is possible debris way far off the coast of Australia, off that southwestern coast.

Tell me what you know, David, about potential plans to fly those family members to Australia if and when they find something.

MCKENZIE: Well, Brooke, that's always been the plan, to get the family members closer to the scene when they find any debris or any crash of this plane.

That is also just sort of the standard operating procedure in this case. But, at this point, it's unclear whether the family members will go, even if they offered to go, because many of them want to stand together and stand strong. Also, possibly, now there will be talk of litigation in the coming days.

This is a very messy scenario for all those involved. But certainly right now tonight, today, the issue is here of raw emotion, realizing that that hope that you had is no longer there, that your loved one -- and in the case of the Chinese families, many of them had single children because of China's one-child policy.

That hope is gone with that child or that furthering on of the generation, so terrible in any situation. But for these families, it seems so much worse because they were kind of hoping for the best about publicly at least, and just huge a visceral response here.

BALDWIN: Devastating. Cannot begin to imagine what this is like for them. David McKenzie in Beijing for us.

And at today's announcement, Malaysia's prime minister talked about this new data, specifically data from the British company Inmarsat, this satellite communications firm. He said they were able to do something that they have actually never done before, figuring out the plane's direction of travel using a particular calculation to analyze the jet's automated satellite data.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer talked to a top Inmarsat official not too long ago, who said while nothing is final, the data is pretty solid.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS MCLAUGHLIN, INMARSAT: The Malaysians are obviously stating that there was only seven, seven-and-a-half-hours of fuel and that if the plane went to the south, it most likely went into an Indian Ocean. I'm not an expert. I'm just simply saying that that does look the inevitable experience.

BLITZER: Chris, is Inmarsat is saying the plane mostly likely took the southern route or that it definitely took that southern route through the Indian Ocean?

CHRIS MCLAUGHLIN: Wolf, I'm trying to be a little bit British about this, you can imagine.

I'm saying we have looked at the models' path and we have looked at the experience of the pings that we got for the aircraft. They closely match each other. So if you're in the whodunit mode, you're most likely going to be looking in the southern ocean.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's go to Washington and stay on this with Tom Foreman.

Tom, just can you walk me through how Inmarsat used this data to figure out where the plane went?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brooke, this is very much like what you learned in high school, a mathematics problems. That's what they have done. They have boiled it down to that.

It starts with a simple idea here. We're talking about the northern and southern arc out here that the plane was believed to be flying on. How did they do that? Think about this. If you shouted out across a canyon and you got an echo back, if it's a smaller canyon, it comes back to you quick person, if it's bigger canyon, it takes longer.

Think about this. We have a satellite flying. Here's the Inmarsat satellite at 22,000 miles above the Earth. If it sends a signal down to the Earth to a plane like this, and it want to get that signal back, it takes a period of time, quarter second or less probably, but that's a huge amount of time in this equation. If you were to translate that into a series of circles, if you said each circles represents how close you are to the satellite, by measuring the distance they're able to say this is how far that plane was at any given moment. They create this line out here of dots basically which you're reading from the plane. They don't know if it goes north or south at that point. It just tells them how far away it was from the center where the satellite would be.

But then they say, look, authorities know to the north there are a lot of radars up there that should have read a plane, on top of which, Brooke, the Earth, as you know, is not exactly round. So you will get a slightly different reading to the north than to the south.

And then what they did is what he sort alluded to there. They looked at other planes just like you would if you were learning a mathematics equation where you have the answer you figure out how you got to it. They looked at other planes where they knew the real equation. They ran their equation and said did the equation correctly predict the location of a plane we know about? Yes, it did, yes, it did, yes, it did.

And after doing all of that, then they said now they said run the equation for the missing plane. And this has to be your answer, right down there in the bottom.

And those little yellow boxes down there with the grids on that, that's when you add in the drift patterns from the currents down there. It's really is flat-out mathematical detective work, Brooke.

And it's not that complicated, but it hasn't been applied this way before. I was talking to a professor at Georgia Tech who said this is pretty basic work, but if you apply it this way and you extrapolate it properly, it should be rock-solid.

So that is how they managed to take a search area that, as you and I both know, was at one point was as big as 20 million square miles and now they have down it to at least a searchable space.

BALDWIN: Should be rock-solid. We're hearing from Inmarsat pretty solid here, but still for these families, pot quite enough.

So I wanted -- Tom Foreman, thank you very much.

Let's talk about this possible, the search for the possible debris out in the ocean. Australian navy vessels, they steamed forward today toward the spot in the Indian Ocean, vast Indian Ocean where an air crew reported seeing two objects, one green or gray in color and one orange.

And then on top of that, we're hearing from China, China also spotting what it called suspicious objects from the air. Let me be clear, none of the objects has been re-spotted, and they cannot be confirmed right now to have come from Flight 370.

But joining me now from Washington, Steve Wallace, CNN aviation analyst, and then here with me in studio, pilot and aviation safety special Captain Tom -- excuse me -- John Ransom.

John, let me begin with you, because now that we're hearing from the Malaysian prime minister today, right, and his phraseology was that the flight ended in the Indian Ocean, is there anything from what you have gleaned today on bits and pieces that may help us understand why or how this plane veered so off course?

JOHN RANSOM, SAFETY OPERATING SYSTEMS: Well, things are still very much up in the air. We haven't heard anything so definitive as to be able to point in a particular direction as to cause the airplane to go down there.

BALDWIN: No, we haven't.

RANSOM: I think he was very gentle in saying that the flight ended in the South Indian Ocean, instead of using any other verbiage. But we're still no closer to figuring out what happened to the airplane.

BALDWIN: Steve, anything just jumping out at you from what we know today from everything you have heard?

STEVEN WALLACE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, Captain Ransom is exactly right. On day one of an accident investigation, everything is on the table. Here, we're day 18, everything is still on the table.

We had the very somber announcement from the prime minister. I think in an effort to perhaps bring some closure to these families who have suffered so terribly, he also took away perhaps their last glimmer of hope that the plane might have miraculously have landed someplace.

But the investigation goes on. And I would just note a couple of things. I have heard that Inmarsat officials, and I have believed from day one that the Inmarsat data was among the more reliable evidence in this investigation.

There has been a lot of missteps and investigation and evidence of doubtful quality. But I would also point out that from Perth, from the airport to the location of the most likely spot where they're looking for...

BALDWIN: It's hours.

RANSOM: ... debris or wreckage, it's about New York to Denver is about what you're looking at here. So I think this is obviously a very, very uniquely challenging investigation.

And we haven't seen a large jet transport disappear like this ever.

BALDWIN: Steve, let me stay with you, because as we're looking at this animation and we're talking about this trajectory just for a search plane, we know that vessels are headed to try to find, to re- find the debris. Let's say they find the debris. Right?

They grab it. What is step number one in figuring out, A, it in fact came from this 777 and, B, then sort of working backwards and figuring out based upon this potentially piece of metal what happened on the plane?

WALLACE: Well, so I think the biggest hope is that they find something they can identify with the plane. Most likely, the things that fleet tend to be lightweight interior components or something that could have in the baggage or the overhead bins, certainly seat cushions. That's what you normally see.

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: Yes, large pieces of structure tend to sink.

So if you identify something positively with the flight, it could be nothing more than a passenger's bag with a name on it. And then, while the evidence might tell you something that was a piece of structure about the failure, it's really more likely I think to just lead you closer to where you can get those invaluable recorders.

BALDWIN: To the key, to The key.

WALLACE: To the recorders, correct.

BALDWIN: Captain, what about we're also hearing -- we hear from sources, and sometimes sources turn out to be wrong. We know that. But one source has told CNN that after the left turn that this plane made instead of going off to Beijing, that at some point it dropped to 12,000 feet. When you heard that, what did you think?

RANSOM: Well, assuming that that was in fact correct, it made me think that that would be the actions of a crew that's trying either get down to breathable air or trying to get to the nearest suitable airport to put the airplane on the ground. Staying at 35,000 feet when you have something catastrophic having happened to the airplane is not something that the crew members want to do at all. They want to start the airplane down and get it landed.

BALDWIN: And so somewhere between that turn if it did go down to 12,000, and then the big question is what happened then for it to go all the way southward, right, into the Indian Ocean, where according to the prime minister it ended.

RANSOM: The competing facts are the problem.

For example, if the airplane did go down at 12,000 feet, it either had to presumably go back up to a higher altitude to get enough fuel to last seven more hours or it had to reduce the speed enough to where flying at such a low drag spot on the drag curve would allow it to fly for that long. And that would be an amazing happenstance were it to take place.

BALDWIN: John Ransom, thank you very much. And Steve Wallace, thanks to you.

Again, we keep coming up with more questions than answers unfortunately. But I thank you.

And you're going to stick around, because we're answering your questions . People have tweeted me. Continue the tweets @BrookeBCNN. Make sure you hashtag #370Qs so we know which ones to look for. We will ask our experts in about 30 minutes from now some of your questions that you have, so many.

But, meantime, I want to get back to the heartbroken family this is Beijing today. Relatives you see here wheeled out on gurneys, on stretchers because of this news, lashing out at members of the media, lashing out at the government, at the airlines after hearing their loved ones on this plane are lost.

Coming up, I will talk to a man who knows exactly what they're feeling because his brother went missing on a flight 11 years ago and he was never found. His words for those families next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

And although hands tried to shield the grieving from camera lenses, we see the plane of the Flight 370 families. But the actual anguish is experienced only by few people.

My next guest is one of them.

Joe Padilla's brother Ben was a pilot and a flight engineer. And back in 2003, he was one of two passengers on the 727 from Angola that vanished. And Joe has been searching for Ben ever since.

Joe Padilla joins me now from Pensacola, Florida.

Joe, welcome.

JOE PADILLA, BROTHER DISAPPEARED: Thank you.

BALDWIN: I can't underscore enough that these are very different scenarios. Right? Your brother was, as I mentioned, one of two on the plane. You didn't have the whole world looking for your brother's plane.

But, that said, sir, you know what it feels like to sit and wait and to wonder what happened to your loved one.

PADILLA: Yes, I sure do.

I just hope the Malaysian government isn't jumping the gun here, because on the search for my brother, I learned that all the aircraft made, all the serial numbers of all the parts on the plane are cataloged, in this case being the manufacturer would be I believe Boeing.

Well, does anyone have a part from that plane with a serial number and has went to Boeing with the serial number to see if this is in fact the plane? Because it gets people's hope up and down, up and down.

BALDWIN: Did the up and down -- at what point did your up and down end? Has it? PADILLA: It hasn't. It hasn't, because I still spend several hours all the time searching on Internet, seeing if I can find anyone that knows anything, checking my e-mail constantly, because I have my e- mail.

And hopefully if someone would know anything about it would e-mail me. And every now and then, I receive phone calls from different people that knew my brother and just asking me if I have heard anything out of it, which I haven't.

BALDWIN: So, every day, you still spend time trying to figure out what happened to your brother, the ups and downs continue.

What do you make of the fact as we're reporting that these family members, apparently, Malaysia Airlines tried to tell them in person or over a phone, but it's just sort of a logistical nightmare, a lot of people, different countries. They found out over a text message. Did you hear about that?

PADILLA: Yes, I did. I have been watching CNN well since this began.

I could not believe what I heard. Sending a text message to family members? That is something you don't do. And just like I said, I don't believe they should have come out with the Malaysian prime minister. I don't believe he should have given a news conference until he knew 100 percent that this was the plane.

BALDWIN: There is this debris, as you know, because you have been watching this possible plane debris off of -- way of on of Australia. And so Malaysia Airlines, as per protocol, is offering to send these families to Perth to at least be closer to the search.

Do you think that that would be helpful for these family members waiting?

PADILLA: No. No, I don't. I think it would be too hurtful.

If in fact it is, I think it would be too hurtful. As far as for me, I know it would be too hurtful. But I was watching earlier today. And someone had told one of the people you had interviewed about the bodies, they would like to have the bodies back.

I'm in the same position ads they are. I would like to have my brother's body back if he's deceased.

BALDWIN: What is it about having a body that -- is it -- again, I say this, I hate the word closure, but is it a sense of peace, is it a sense of it's that tangible knowing where your brother is?

PADILLA: Yes, it would be peace of mind if I had my brother's body back. Yes, it would, because, 11 years, that's a long time. And it's a lot of stress. I have had quite a few little heart attacks because of this stress. And it's pure hell living like this, not knowing what has happened to my brother. He's my flesh and blood.

BALDWIN: I can't begin to understand. At least here, there are multiple -- there were 239 people on board and all these people in similar situations and you are alone.

Joe Padilla, thank you so much for sharing such a horrible unique experience that you have endured and continue to endure. I appreciate it.

PADILLA: OK. Thank you so much.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Talk about proof here, Australians are scrambling by sea right now trying to find the suspicious objects sighted by air earlier today. Could this be pieces of the plane? We will take you live to Perth next.

Also, we continue to answer your questions here on CNN in just a minute. Keep the tweets coming. @BrookeBCNN is my Twitter handle, and make sure you hashtag #370Qs.

And we will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Malaysian officials say they believe that Flight 370 disappeared into the southern Indian Ocean.

And today's announcement came soon after Australian officials said they had spotted two objects about 1,500 miles southwest of the Australian coastline.

So CNN's Kyung Lah is live for us in Perth, where it is just about 3:30 in the morning.

Kyung, so we're a couple hours away before daylight, hopefully good conditions out in the waters. Tell me about this search.

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The conditions, let's start there, are actually going to deteriorate.

We have already heard from the military the weather forecast for the search area expected to be very poor. There is a weather system coming in. They have already dealt with low-lying clouds. They can't see very well. It is supposed to get worse today, so certainly there is an urgency to try to find today this debris. But it is not easy from this location.

The planes that will be leaving here in about two-and-a-half-hours, that is typically what has been happening. They have been leaving, heading four hours to this remote section, a section where the water according to one of the pilots looks like a giant washing machine. That is how tough the waters are. They have to wade through all of that visually, try to spot something, and then four hour back here, Brooke.

So the search continuing again today, but it is not easy -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Not news families wants. That's for sure. Kyung Lah in Perth for us, Kyung, thank you.

We're staying on the story. Keep your questions coming. We will get some of them answered coming up next. We have experts on standby.

Stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)