Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Sunday Search Begins in Indian Ocean; Chinese Navy Finds Floating Objects; Grieving Families Get Mixed Messages; Quakes Rattle Southern California

Aired March 29, 2014 - 21:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Don Lemon. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. We're going to get back to the search for that missing plane in just a moment. But first, we have some developing news to tell you about out of Washington. We're awaiting a press conference on that landslide.

We know so far, 17 people had died. That's confirmed by officials. At least 90 still unaccounted for. We're keeping our eye -- our eye on this press conference to get the very latest for you.

Any news that comes out of that, we'll bring it to you right here on CNN. So stand by for that. Also, of course, we're following the missing plane -- everyone searching for the missing airliner, hoping Sunday is different. Here are the latest developments.

Search planes are at it again. They're in the air. It's confirmed by CNN just a short time ago. They're taking off from Perth, Australia, to begin scanning for plane wreckage 1,100 miles out.

But there is a problem. And that's the weather. Clouds are low. It is raining. And the forecast shows no improvement. That's not good for visual -- visual searching.

Overnight in the darkness, a Chinese navy found something floating in the ocean. They scooped up some objects. We don't know what they are yet. And we don't know if they're connected to that flight.

More than three weeks since flight 370 vanished, a number of rock- solid clues still remains now at zero. Let's get to our Atika Shubert, shall we? She is standing by live in Perth on the West Coast of Australia.

Atika, from what you have seen, how many planes are in the air now and how big is the -- big of a concern is the weather?

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The weather is always going to be a big concern. As you point out, with the low clouds hanging over, it's going to be very hard to see any potential debris. But that's not stopping the search.

There are already four planes up in the air. The Chinese Yushan (ph) should be reaching, if not already in the search area. And the U.S. P- 8 Poseidon should be very soon be there as well. There are two P-3s also up in the air. And these are all critical planes because they can use their special radar and can fly very low to really eyeball the sea and see what they -- what kind of potential debris is out there. So the -- the planes keep going.

And I think, actually, here at Perth Air base, we may have heard another P-3 getting ready to take off as well. There'll be a -- a total of 10 planes in the sky today, one of them a commercial jet.

And they'll have a lot more time to search. So hopefully, they'll get good some -- some good leads today, Don.

LEMON: You know, these objects that the Chinese found in the water before the sun came up, what do you know about them? What can you tell us about them, Atika?

SHUBERT: Well, we don't know exactly what they are. But what we understand is they're not -- they are not from the plane at this point. So they could be anything, you know, tossed out of a container ship or a fishing vessel.

They found a fishing buoy a few days ago. But what it means is that the ship then continues to move on, chase after other objects that have already been sighted. And this is a critical part of the process.

They have to physically haul that object in to check whether or not it comes from the plane. So far, they haven't found it. But the more -- the more space they can cover, the more objects they can find, the better the chances are.

LEMON: All right, thank you, Atika Shubert. We appreciate that.

Grieving families of passengers are enduring an emotional roller coaster to say the very least. Some families say Malaysian authorities are restricting their movements and trying to ban them from some briefings.

Our senior international correspondent, Sara Sidner spoke with outraged families in Kuala Lumpur.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARA SIDNER, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: For weeks, Malaysian airlines representatives in Kuala Lumpur have been overtly protective of the families of those aboard Flight MH-370, shielding them from everything, including the media.

The families initially appreciated it. But some of the family members from China now say, Malaysian Airlines staff have gone too far, making them feel more like captives than guests in their hotel.

TRANSLATOR: I just wanted to come and meet the minister and meet other family members. But I wasn't allowed to leave. And they wouldn't arrange transportation. They wouldn't even let me take a taxi. I lost my freedom. SIDNER: Tempers flared Saturday when the Mandarin-speaking families in this hotel were told they could not attend a briefing for the Malaysian families. Most of the Chinese and Malaysian families are housed in separate hotels and have separate briefings in their native languages.

Waiting for details of their loves ones has been excruciating. So with no briefing in Mandarin, the Chinese families asked if they could attend the Malaysian briefing. The answer was no. The Chinese families bulked (ph).

They even tried to hail a cab and were stopped from doing that, too. About an hour later, after some arguing, Malaysian Airlines finally offered to take them to the briefing.

But when they arrived at the Everly Hotel (ph), the Chinese families were not allowed into the briefing and told to wait in the room next door. Finally, with frustrations boiling over, Malaysian officials came to them.

This is video taken from inside the private meeting as the Chinese families met with the CEO of Malaysian Airlines, a translator, the transportation minister, and his wife. A pregnant woman whose husband is missing begins by asking authorities if they will search as long as it takes.

TRANSLATOR: Can -- can you give her the assurance that -- promise her I will do everything within my power.

TRANSLATOR: Let's say if he's injured, at least I can see him. Now, he's not here. He went missing. It's been so many days and there isn't any evidence.

SIDNER: She is comforted by the wife of the Malaysian Transportation Minister. But she reminds Malaysian officials that this is not the time to make the families' lives more difficult by restricting their movements.

TRANSLATOR: Please tell the staff not to regulate our families' movements. We cannot handle another shock. Please let them be free.

SIDNER: Already prisoners of their circumstance, the families say all they want is the truth. Sara Sidner, CNN, Kuala Lumpur.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: All right, Sara, thank you very much. Make sure you -- make -- make sure you stay with CNN. Just about 25 minutes, we're going to have a program called "Flight 370: The Final Hours," a half-hour special that takes a detailed look into what we know about the flight's last hours.

Again, tonight, 9:30, just a few minutes, right here on CNN. My panel is going to weigh in in just a moment. They're going to join us right after this quick break. And we have some developing news for you as well out of Washington. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: This just into CNN. As I said, we have some developing news out of Washington. And Washington State, the death toll in that landslide, we're told by an emergency management official has now gone up from 17 to 19. Specifically, he said, they have identified 18 victims and one other victim yet to be identified, still about 90 people unaccounted for.

But the death toll in that landslide in Washington State gone up from 17 to 19. We'll continue to update you on that. Also, we're updating you now on the missing plane.

So search crews back up in the air now. And we know that they also found some objects in the ocean. Chinese search crew found objects in -- in the ocean. They are examining them now.

Don't know if it is connected to Flight 370. I want to bring in my panel of experts, Conservation Biologist And Marine Debris Specialist Nick Mallos, Aviation Attorney Mark Dombroff and Aviation Analyst and Pilot Les Abens, CNN Analyst, Aviation Analyst and pilot Miles O'Brien.

Nick, I want to start with you. Are you surprised they haven't found any plane debris yet or anything that is solid evidence?

NICK MALLOS, MARINE DEBRIS SPECIALIST: Not really. We forget that the ocean is a -- is a massive, massive expanse, and particularly, as we're seeing from the -- the imagery that had surfaced in the past few days, even when we have planes flying at low-lying altitudes and boats on the water, it's incredibly difficult to identify floating debris, excuse me.

And when you add in the variables like the stormy weather and winds which has the potential to -- to move debris around and push it below the surface, it makes for a very complex environment where identifying and getting visual documentation on these floating items very, very difficult.

LEMON: OK, so Miles, you know, I think Nick brings up a very good point. And if we -- if we do have -- if we have any sort of animation that can show the ocean -- the Indian Ocean and we look at the size of Asia, the size of Africa, the size of Australia there, and you can -- you can fit almost all of them into the Indian ocean, then you're -- then you've sort of get the idea of just how big an expanse this is.

When it takes you four or five hours to fly to a search zone, that's not even in the middle of the Indian Ocean, I think that sort of gives you the idea of what they're up against and just how big this is because people are saying, well, why can't they find it? And I -- and I try to tell them, do you have any idea how vast this ocean is?

And that's covering the top. And then you're talking about two, three miles below the surface as well as a possibility.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Yes, so it's -- it's a multidimensional problem that is -- is -- it's really hard for us to wrap our -- our brains around it. You know, the -- the earth is 80 percent ocean. And think of all the landmass that we're familiar with. And that's only 20 percent of the earth. So it's, you know, when -- when you think about searching, we keep using that needle in a haystack expression, but that -- shoot, that -- that would be easy, needle in a haystack.

This is -- this is a huge task. And you know, basically, the search zone has been identified by a means that was never intended to be used that way. It was very clever.

We just don't know how accurate it might be. So couple that with mother nature and the fall is upon us and the sea state is a difficult thing, you know, we're starting to stack up the odds here, aren't we?

LEMON: Yes, we certainly are.

Les, the type of debris they find obviously depends on the impact.

LES ABEND, AVIATION ANALYST: True, yes. The -- I mean, the -- the higher speed the impact, the more fragments there are going to be. The slower speed, as in Air France, the -- the more bigger pieces you're -- you're going to find.

LEMON: Yes. It's -- it's so interesting that, you know, we -- for three weeks, we've been talking over -- talking about the unknown. There are just so many different possibilities here -- different possibilities.

There's a lot of manpower going into this, a lot of money as well. And most people are not concerned about the money. Obviously, the families aren't concerned about it. But this is more than money.

I mean, what if the airline -- what is the airline obligated to do when it comes to medical and psychological help for the relatives, Mark?

MARK DOMBROFF, AVIATION ATTORNEY: Well, don, I think that certainly from all the reports that I've seen and I've heard, the airline is providing grief counseling, psychological-type counseling, counselors to support them. Malaysia Airlines is a sophisticated international carrier.

It's not to say they haven't made missteps here. I think almost any carrier in this sort of position with this sort of situation might make missteps. But they operate into Los Angeles.

They have on file with the U.S. Department of Transportation, certain family assistance act assurances. They certainly understand how to deal with these situations.

And all the reports that I've read have indicated that they've responded with both personnel and with offers of interim payments and so forth. But, again, as I think I earlier indicated in a prior segment, what the families want is information.

And the airline, quite frankly, is no better off than anybody else in terms of providing that information. And they, in some respects, and many respects, are victims of misinformation coming from the government.

LEMON: Miles, can we talk about -- we mentioned that the expanse of this ocean, I mean, Les Abend obviously knows, he has flown over long flights over water, just how big it is. There have been lots of questions about aircraft carriers.

And that would certainly help out in this particular situation. What do you know about that, Miles?

O'BRIEN: Well, what got me started on this, I actually got interested in the search of Amelia Earhart. And I wanted to see what they used back in 1937. And they -- they did, in fact, deploy an aircraft carrier and battle ships -- pretty good hunk (ph) of the seven fleet (ph), was looking for Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan -- two people. So I started thinking about that in -- and how that might be applied here.

The carrier George Washington based in Japan could be on site there in about a week. And the other day, the rear admiral who was the spokesperson for the Defense Department, Admiral Kirby was here, sort of cornered (ph) him in the hall -- cornered him in the hall and asked him about this.

He said, well, number one, you know, the -- the aircraft carrier is tasked (ph). Number two, it was his contention that it really wouldn't do much good. And I'm not sure I follow that logic.

That would mean additional aircraft on site. There wouldn't be the range issues we're talking about because you could park (ph) it right in the middle of the search zone. You'd have helicopters.

And granted, the -- the carrier base aircraft are not ideally suited for search missions like the P-8 or the P-3 is, which is land-based. But it's still more eyeballs on target. And there are, y k the -- the C-2s and the E-2s -- each of them have about a 1,500-mile range.

So they really could cover some turf. You know, given the fact that we just talked about all the odds that are up against this search, the size of the search area, the weather, the fact that winter is coming, why not send the carrier down?

I think, you know, the -- if the U.S. Navy was asked by the Malaysians, I suspect they'd -- they'd do it.

LEMON: You know, it is called an AUV. And it could be the technology that makes a difference for Flight 370.

Rosa Flores joins me next with an inside look at the unmanned underwater probe that could be used to locate objects deep on the ocean floor. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: When a crash -- when likely crash site for Malaysia airlines Flight 370 is identified, the next step will be to send sophisticated pieces of underwater equipment to the ocean bottom. Rosa Flores joins me now to explain how one of these expensive machines can help map that debris field, Rose.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So let's talk about AUVs.

LEMON: OK.

FLORES: So these are autonomous underwater vehicles. They look like little probes, little missiles, if you will. But they dive deep into the ocean several miles.

And they start creating a map of the ocean floor. How do they do that? Well, they use side scan sonar. And they scan the ocean floor, looking for oddities. Don, in the case of MH-370, of course, we are looking for anything that is not natural to the ocean floor.

We are looking for plane wreckage. Now, here is one of the very important things about this technology. It's able to produce a preliminary picture of the ocean floor real-time, as soon as this probe is able to go miles deep into the ocean.

Once the probe finishes its mission, then it comes back to shore. It's connected to a computer. And it is actually able to produce a high- resolution picture of the ocean floor.

Now, what you're looking at is the deployment of -- of a probe that's owned by CNC Technologies in Louisiana. And you'll see that it gets deployed into the water. That's what it normally does.

And once it gets into the water, that's when crew, in a control room, input and program the mission for this particular probe. Now, one of the other things that's very important about this particular probe, Don, is that, you know, how we've been talking about the ping and, oh, are we going to run out of time?

LEMON: Right, that can this help with that if it does run out?

FLORES: Become (ph) -- this particular probe is so customized. I talked to the owner about it. He says that he's able to add a pinger locator to this particular device.

So for example, if this were deployed, it'd be able to do a scan -- a sonar scan of ocean floor and create that map and also look for the ping all at the same time.

LEMON: All right. Thank you, Rosa. Appreciate it.

FLORES: Of course.

LEMON: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 verging on a new chapter. Ten search planes are set to take off soon in Perth, Australia. As a matter of fact, some of them are in the air right now.

More on this in a little bit. But first, there is a developing story that we want to get to out of California. Multiple earthquakes all within a 24-hour period, the latest happened just a few hours ago in L.A. County near Rowland Heights.

It was one of several aftershocks to the big one last night, a 5.1 near the Orange County City of El Habra. Stephanie Elam joins me now.

And Stephanie, it was your day off. You came in because of the aftershock. So tell us about -- the first one was the aftershock this morning, right?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, well, yes. Well, let me tell you about last night. So last night, we (ph) definitely felt. That one came in in the evening. And it was a rolling earthquake as opposed to, at least where I live -- as opposed to the one on St. Patrick's Day, which was in the morning, which was a nice, sharp jolt.

This one rolling through but it definitely having some damage that it did cause. We got some rocks that fell on a road. We have some broken bottles, broken vases, broken glass, that sort of thing.

And then we had a hundred about earthquakes. Like I was watching it on Twitter of the earthquakes that were being reported. There were small one or two pointers. But there were definitely a bunch of earthquakes after that, reportedly aftershocks.

And then we had this other earthquake today, this 4.4 earthquake. And now, because of that, I'm seeing (ph) that down in the town Fullerton, which is south of -- of where I am in L.A., that they did the (ph) red tag some apartment buildings.

But then they did go ahead and cleared those apartment buildings. Six of the houses that were red-tagged -- those still remain red-tagged. And so that's displacing about 23 people. The fire chief has been e- mailing with me about that.

So there has been some damage. But overall, this one was not as damaging as some of the other earthquakes we've seen out here. If you think about the Northridge earthquake which was six-point or six- point-something, let's say, 6.7 on that one which was in 1994.

And then you also have the Loma Prieta earthquake, which was in San Francisco. That was a 7.1. So when it comes to Californians and hearing numbers, things in the sixes and the seven, that's where we really get scary.

But that's just -- overall, the people should be prepared.

LEMON: Yes. Stephanie Elam, off the beach, right? No time for doing the hair up. That's what happens when you report --

(CROSSTALK)

ELAM: I don't do my hair on the Saturday.

LEMON: Well, we appreciate you coming in. Thank you, Steph. Appreciate that.

Let's get back now to the missing Flight 370, our final thoughts. I want to turn now to my panelists.

Nick, you first, what questions would you like answered in this investigation?

MALLOS: I'm -- I'm not sure it's a -- a question that needs to be answered. But -- but I do think because of the difficulty of this search and rescue mission, as we've seen visual and aerial imagery alone, will not suffice to determine whether or not these items are -- are from the wreckage of the Malaysian flight.

I think to the extent possible that -- that more vessels and more debris items can be recovered and then either identified or -- or basically determined to not be part of the -- the Malaysian wreckage, I think will expedite this process and potentially narrow down the search area.

LEMON: Mark?

DOMBROFF: Well, I -- I guess, Don, looking at the question of the investigation, itself, as it moves forward, irrespective and hopefully, we're going to find the airplane and get the answers, but irrespective of whether the aircraft is located or not, the question I guess I would like answered is what is the Malaysian government and the Malaysian accident investigation authorities going to do to see to it that the mistakes that we have all seen out there are not repeated in terms of communication of information, in terms of the families, in terms of the crew members, in terms of the cockpit crew members.

I think that's something that people better address right now, irrespective of how this continues to unfold.

LEMON: Very good point.

Les Abend?

ABEND: I'd like to see more information with regards to the radar data when it comes to direction of flight and especially altitude. I think some of the assumptions on where the search area has gone, I'm not -- I'm not clear on that.

LEMON: More on the radar data.

ABEND: More on radar data, especially when it pertains to altitude.

LEMON: OK. ABEND: Yes.

LEMON: Miles O'Brien?

O'BRIEN: I totally agree with Les. We need radar data. We want to line that up with the altitude as best we know it. And we want to overlay that with the air traffic control communications, which we still haven't heard.

And then I'd like to see the maintenance records of that aircraft. And I'd like to know a little bit about those pilots, what was it like, the 10 pilots that flew with them on previous flights? Did they know anything or see anything that was at all suspicious?

LEMON: Very good points. Listen, there is so much to go over here. We have learned a lot of new information today. And you know, it feels like because we've been covering this for three weeks that nothing concrete has been learned. They have not pulled anything out of the ocean that they are for sure is part of Flight 370. But, again, we have learned that they are getting things that may be related to that. The families are wanting answers.

The families are walking out of -- walked out of one press conference. We're hearing from family members more now. They're wanting to get in front of cameras because they want their voices heard.

And we're learning new information about radar data -- maybe not enough, about the safety of that airplane -- maybe not enough. We are learning collectively, all of us here in the United States and around the country, those of us who are tuned in to CNN around the country -- more about aviation than we have learned probably over the course of our lives, especially being in that simulator with our Martin Savage over the past couple of -- of weeks, and from all of our analysts and experts here on CNN.

And we have to keep top of mind the 239 people onboard that plane and their family members who are in grief right now and have no finality to this situation. That is why we continue to cover this.

And we will until we find something out to help those families. I'm Don Lemon. CNN Special Report "Flight 370: The Final Hours" begins right now.