Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Thailand, Japan Spot More Objects In Indian Ocean; Could Satellite Sightings Be The Same Debris Field?; White House: Six Million Have Signed Up For Obamacare; Obama: "Great Honor" To Meet The Pope

Aired March 27, 2014 - 14:30   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: Bottom of the hour, I'm Brooke Baldwin. This is CNN's special coverage of Flight 370. Country by country, satellite images are now sort of pouring in showing these objects that could be debris from the vanished plane. Today we are learning ten objects have now been spotted by Japan, Thailand coming forward with this, 300 shiny objects snapped by satellite Monday. All of these sightings are in the same vicinity.

But the question now, the weather, will the weather permit search planes to zero in on any of this before it continue to drift away with those wild currents in this part of the world. What we do know now is this, is that Flight 370 disappeared because of two possible reasons. One is some sort of catastrophic event and the other is something more nefarious.

After days of speculation, the pilot's son is now coming forward, speaking out, telling a Malaysian newspaper, quote, "I've read everything online, but I've ignored all the speculation. I know my father better. We may not be as close since he travels so much, but I understand him." From son there of that pilot.

Let's talk about this debris field here, the big story today. Chad Myers joining me and as we talk, let's look at, again, because to me the pictures really are telling the story today. We thought the 122 objects yesterday was a lot and now here we have 300 from Thai satellites. When we talk about these chunks, forgive my lack of technical terms, the chunks of possible debris fields, how far apart are they from one another?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Some over 200 miles. That's a pretty big distance to blow anything around. It has been in the water now if it did crash there and these are pieces, they have been in the water for three weeks. You can move a very long distance in three weeks. The average current in this area is about a half mile per hour. OK, so I don't want to do math on TV here, but that's a very long well over 200 miles.

If you blow wind and if something is sticking out like a cooler is sticking out of the water. That will also be pushed along by the wind. That will change where that will end up as well. All these things are spread out and it's probably understandable how far they are spread out. We had storm after storm roll over that search box. Yesterday was ugly. They didn't get out at all yesterday, but today and tonight and 7:00 p.m. is their 7:00 a.m., it will get significantly better.

Here's what they have been dealing with here with one spy satellite flying over the area at a time. We have the debris about 200 miles further south, but here's how it makes a big difference here. This debris that we are seeing from Malaysia is about 30 miles from the Japanese debris right here. That's 30 miles in 72 hours. Remember the speed? A half mile per hour. That's about where this pushes. If you look at all of these currents going all in different directions here --

BALDWIN: Looks like a Van Gogh painting all the different directions --

MYERS: It is. The camera can do a better job than me zooming in, but it's spinning around right here. If the debris is caught here, it could go this way and some caught here or here. This will end up in a very large area. The fact that it is spread out is not that unusual. The good news is we will get an air and sea search coming up at 7:00 a.m. their time, 7:00 p.m. our time tonight because the weather is much better today -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: I was reading with the search area and again it's about the beginning of fall there with the sun moving in and they have 15 hours of daylight for search now and in a couple of months, because listen, who knows how long they will be out there looking for this, down to nine hours.

MYERS: Well, that's true because that far we are south. But take another look at this. It doesn't matter. We have all of these geo synchronous earth-orbiting satellites, 22,000 miles in space right above the equator. If that is trying to look down at something at 45 degrees south, it is actually hitting it at a 45-degree angle. You can't even see the South Pole from that because it's completely blocked.

So it's looking down like this rather than looking straight on. You'd love to have a satellite flying over the top and that's what we are doing. We talk about these satellites. There is a couple of different times. The satellites that are basically the highest and lowest to the ground satellite. They will fly in a big circle around the globe. It keeps going in relation to the stars.

It stays in the same spot. It just keeps going and going and going. The earth spins underneath it. So we are taking a picture of the earth once a day. This way and once a day this way. So you don't get that many images. You can't say pan out to the left or the right. It doesn't work that way. Once it goes by, it takes another 24 hours for it to come back on this path.

The other is typically dark so you get one image a day and that's why sometimes this takes so long. It's not like the movies where we are looking at, you know, Osama Bin Laden and he is eating a cheese sandwich. It doesn't work that way. BALDWIN: Chad Myers, appreciate the visual. Always helps me sort of understand what we are dealing with.

Let's get to this. We have breaking news here on CNN. We are getting word now the number of people who enrolled in Obamacare has hit the 6 million mark. So let's go to Jim Acosta traveling with the president today as we know met with Pope Francis this morning. They are in Rome. But Jim Acosta, let's talk Obamacare. Six million a symbolic victory, but isn't that still short of their goal?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the original estimate from the Congressional Budget Office, Brooke, that the Obama administration embraced was seven million, but then earlier this month, the CBO came out and said, well, it's probably going to be six million because of those problems with the web site. The administration did not really latch on to that latest number, but they are, I think, you can pretty much surmise that they are pretty pleased that they reached the 6 million enrollee number.

But let's just add a couple of caveats in the meantime. One is that we still don't know how many people have paid for their coverage. So we don't have that firm number. We also don't know of those six million, what the make up is in terms of young people. Remember they need that good mix of young adults in there in order for the program to be more sustainable.

So we are still waiting on those numbers. But no question about it, if the president is announcing during this trip that 6 million people have signed up for Obamacare while he is Rome meeting with the pope, doing all these other things, talking about Russian and Ukraine, the White House feels pretty good about it -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right, Jim Acosta, for us at 7:30 your time there, in Rome, Italy. Thank you, sir, for coming up for us. We appreciate it.

Let's get to some other breaking news out here, a busy, busy Thursday. We now know that the rate at which children are diagnosed with autism has risen. This is according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We are learning now just moments ago, the CDC has now released this new estimate. It says now one in 68 children has autism and just perspective for all of us here, that's a huge jump because it used to be one in 88. That was the figure from two years ago.

We know that the CDC looked at health and educational records of all 8 years old in 11 different states just to reach this conclusion. I'm sharing with you now for more on this new autism report. We want to encourage to you go to cnn.com/health for more on that.

Coming up, we will get back to our breaking news coverage here, special coverage of the Flight 370. We will take your questions. Tweet me @brookebcnn #370qs. We will talk about everything from a lot of questions today. Still about that cockpit voice recorder to why the pilots if they were in some kind of trouble in that cockpit didn't send that mayday message.

Plus sometimes it takes a tragedy like this to impact change in an industry. So what now? What changes are experts planning for the safety of the airline industry? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back to CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. As investigators are searching for the cause of Flight 370's disappearance. Some are already looking ahead to how flying may be affected in our near future. We saw how commercial travel changed after 9/11. So what's in store for air travel now that a 777 jet has vanished? Stephanie Elam has a closer look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARRY SCHIFF, RETIRED COMMERCIAL AIRLINES CAPTAIN: Every accident affects the future of aviation because we learn so much from it.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jetliner catastrophes don't happen often, but when they do, the impact on air travel can be global. In light of the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the decade's old radar technology is being called into question.

(on camera): It seems pretty crazy to me that in 2014 a plane can just disappear.

SCHIFF: I agree with you. You know, anybody can buy a little spot locator to transmit to satellites all the time and we would always know where this person was. Why such things are not on board every jetliner, I don't know.

ELAM (voice-over): In fact, the Federal Aviation Administration has mandated that by 2020, all commercial aircraft have GPS on board. But the FAA doesn't call the shots for international skies.

ANDREW THOMAS, EDITOR, JOURNALIST, "TRANSPORTATION SECURITY": The way aviation happens, it's very local and dependent on goal regulations. Governments at the local level.

ELAM: After 9/11, changes were made. Cockpit doors, for example, were reinforced. But Thomas says long before 2001, calls for that very improvement from some groups in the industry fell on deaf ears.

THOMAS: The industry is hard for us to spend money on anything above and beyond what is mandated by government. We will talk about this, but I think in the end you won't see a lot of action on this.

ELAM (on camera): Any changes will take years. The major reason is cost. While there many suggestions from cameras in the cockpit and cabin to streaming flight data in realtime. These upgrades will cost millions of dollars and would have to be implemented without disrupting a system that moves millions of passengers a day.

(voice-over): Who will pay for those upgrades? In the U.S., the airlines, the taxpayers and ultimately passengers.

(on camera): Do you think maybe now the world will change how we fly?

SCHIFF: We've learned that we need to keep track of airplanes flying across the world. We need to know where they are at all times. More today perhaps than any other time in the past.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ELAM: One issue here that is still a point of contention is how these planes fly in and out of airspaces with different nations. As I talk to Andrew Thomas, he says this is getting better, but it is still very slow going -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: What about, Stephanie, is there an agreement or even consensus that addresses international airline protocol?

ELAM: Right. That's one issue that we are looking into. There is not anything that covers how planes work and how airlines work throughout the world. As you can see an incident like this, any incident, it becomes a very worldwide problem. So that's something that needs to be addressed, but is not addressed at this point.

BALDWIN: It seems like the whole world is looking for this thing, aren't they? Stephanie Elam, thank you so much. Coming up next, keep the questions coming, we are answering them live about this missing MH-370. Everything from could something cause the pilot to fly blind or get lost? A lot of you still asking questions about this cockpit voice recorder. Should it be voice activated? Our 777 pilot is standing by to answer these questions and more #370qs with CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right, questions keep coming on the search for this missing plane and we have our expert, our 777 pilot standing by to get you some answers so keep tweeting me. I'm just looking down. Keep coming in @brookebcnn #370qs.

So Les Abend joins me, rejoins me, our aviation analyst standing by. So Les, let's get to this. First question here from David. David wants to know could something have happened to Flight 370 that cause the pilots to fly blind and get lost, no communication, no transponder and navigation? Is that plausible?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Not very likely on this airplane. It's a very sophisticated airplane. You'd basically have to go down to absolutely no battery power at all on that airplane. So the short answer is really no.

BALDWIN: OK, the next question about the cockpit voice recorder as we know, this thing to record over itself so you just have two hours of recording if and when they find it. The question is this, if the cockpit voice recorder holds two hours of time, maybe recording should be voice activated. What do you think of that? That way you have more when you find it.

ABEND: It's a great question. However, what folks may not understand about the cockpit voice recorder is that it's actually an area mite so it not only records voices that are voices that are transmitted over the radio, but it records internal conversations in the cockpit in addition that, it records sounds and sounds are important in the investigation. It might mean that a flat panel was moved. Sounds associated with certain actions in the cockpit.

So it continue to record almost every noise. A flight attendant coming into the cockpit. That being said, we have gone from a 30- minute voice recording to two hours and perhaps longer than that to help us. The problem may have originated even, you know, prior to that last two hours.

BALDWIN: You bring up an interesting point that I don't really think has been discussed because we talked so much about getting, you know, hearing that traffic between the cockpit and perhaps between one another or the ground, but it's also if and when we get our hands on it, it's the ambient noise that can lend to clues as far as what happened, yes?

ABEND: It's very important. There are documented cases of accidents in the past. What was that the sound? It's very important to accident investigators. Was that the sound of the trim wheel moving? Was that the sound of the flat panel? Sometimes it can be very critical.

BALDWIN: OK, a question from Priscilla. This is what Priscilla wants to know, why can't they have a flight panel data recorder on the plane and data processor or tower-like cell phones use that records all the data. Then we wouldn't have to rely on finding flight data recorders and putting it all up on a Cloud. Why not?

ABEND: Well, it actually that technology is available now. When I fly the North Atlantic going over to Europe, London, for instance, that technology is out there and regulated to send that data. My company has that ability to pick up all the engine parameters in addition to the some of the flight parameters, these other entries that you wouldn't necessarily do unless you indicated a problem, but the technology is there.

BALDWIN: That's great, what about this plane?

ABEND: Well, you know, I can't speak for Malaysia Airlines, but it sounds to me that they didn't have the program that disseminated all the data. I agree that there has to be security involved with this so that it's not hacked and some privacy concerns for crew. You know, not everybody understands what the data means and it can be misinterpreted.

BALDWIN: OK, it's interesting that it's out there though. Here's the question I have not seen yet. Could the pilots have bailed out when over land at 12,000 feet because they were afraid to return? Is that possible? Because are hearing about the 12,000-foot altitude post dramatic left hand turn? Is that even possible at that height?

ABEND: If you are talking 12,000 feet.

BALDWIN: That's pretty high.

ABEND: It's not even height, but the airplane would be pressurized and opening up a door would be next to impossible even at that altitude. Highly unlikely. If the airplane even unpressurized tried to open a door in the slip spring makes it very difficult as heavy as those doors are.

BALDWIN: Our aviation expert, Les Abend, priceless having you here. Really appreciate you coming on and answering the questions. Keep them coming @brookebcnn.

Coming up, we will have more on this investigation of both the captain and his much younger co-pilot here and what our sources are telling us about these two men. We keep talking because it's the big story. The satellite images and possible debris field. How exactly are crews trained to spot objects with their naked eyes? We will tell you.

And seeing what happened inside President Obama's very first meeting with Pope Francis this morning. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: So just before the break, we showed you video of President Obama's meeting with the last pope, Pope Benedict. But today he came face-to-face with the new one that happened on Pope Francis's turf in Vatican City. President Obama presented the pope with a gift, a bag of seeds and the box was made from timber from the very first cathedral to open in the United States which is in Baltimore. The friendly gestures didn't end there.

President Obama actually at one point said and I'm quoting him, "His holiness is probably the only person in the world who has to put up with more protocol."

Max Aaron is in Japan right now competing in the World Figure Skating championship, but the 2013 U.S. national champ had to overcome a lot just to get to this point.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Looking at the grace of these jumps and turns, you would never guess that the 22-year-old figure skater, Max Erin, started skating on a different kind of ice. He started as a toddler and fell in love with ice hockey the first time he picked up a stick.

MAX AARON, 2013 U.S. FIGURE SKATING CHAMPION: I wanted to play University of Michigan hockey and that was my goal, my dream.

GUPTA: He used speed to make up for the lack of size. He started figure stating in the off season to help his game. He started his days figure skating and ending them in hockey skates. By 2007, he was well on the way to fulfilling his dream. He was on the USA hockey development team. But in 2008, he had a major setback.

AARON: I kept pushing on and now both seasons were over. We were in the gym. We were lifting weights and we were doing a dead lift. It seized up and I tilted over. I couldn't walk and get off the ground.

GUPTA: His back was broken.

AARON: I picked these up off the ground. I wanted it on the ice. GUPTA: He to come back slowly and wear just one pair of skates.

AARON: I decided I will figure skate and pursue that as far as I can.

GUPTA: The medals started adding up, including a bronze in 2010 junior nationals. A gold in 2011 junior nationals and a gold in 2013 nationals.

AARON: If you told me about the national championship figure skating, I would say yes, right.

GUPTA: He was the U.S. men's first alternate for the Sochi Olympics and now he is skating for a world title in Japan.

AARON: I was talking to doctors and they say --

(END VIDEOTAPE)