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Time Running Out; Ping Detector Joining Search; North and South Korea Exchange Fire; Grieving Families Demand Answers; Crisis in Ukraine
Aired March 31, 2014 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: I mean, are you kidding me?
PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But we can only all act like a kid sometimes.
CUOMO: Right. Out of the mouths of babes.
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: (INAUDIBLE).
CUOMO: Very good stuff. It's good to be back with all of you.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.
CUOMO: Time for the news with Ms. Carol Costello.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much. Have a great day. NEWSROOM starts now.
Happening now in the NEWSROOM, breaking this morning, Malaysian authorities asking the United States for more military assets to find Flight 370, as families demand answers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We want evidence! We want truth! We want our family! (ph)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will continue searching and we will keep investigating and we will never give up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: This morning, the Ocean Shield heads out to sea in hopes of finding debris, a CNN sits down with Australia's prime minister.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIA PRIME MINISTER: This is a very, very difficult task. But nevertheless, we are giving it the very best shot we can. And if anyone can find this aircraft, it's us.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How long can this be sustained realistically?
ABBOTT: The effort is ramping up, not winding down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: But it's now a race against the clock as the battery life fades on those black boxes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Both of those devices have been emitting a ping for several weeks now. We believe they only have about a week of battery life left.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me this morning.
The search intensifies for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Ten planes and 11 ships scour the southern Indian Ocean for debris. Malaysian officials confirm the most promising lead, those four orange objects found over the weekend, nothing more than fishing equipment. This as Malaysian authorities are calling on the United States to deploy more military assets to the search zones.
Right now, Australia's hi-tech Ocean Shield is heading out to sea. It's equipped with the U.S. Navy's black box detector. Search crews have less than a week before the battery on that pinger runs out. CNN's Will Ripley is on board a boat following the Ocean Shield. He has more now. Take it away, Will.
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Carol.
Yes, the Ocean Shield departed Garden Island, which is western Australia's largest naval base, within the last hour. And we have some new video to show you. We were following it, but I have to tell you, it was going so quickly that one of the other boats with news cameras on it, as they were trying to keep up, we were trying to keep up, their engine died. They put out an S.O.S. call, so we had to stop the chase, turn around and help that boat because they were in a busy shipping lane.
So, we want to show you the video. We were able to follow the Ocean Shield for quite some time. And I want to bring in the captain of the boat that we're on, The Thunder, Captain Ray Ruby, to talk about how fast was the boat going and talk about those moments as we were following them, captain.
RAY RUBY, CAPTAIN, DOWN UNDER MARINE CARTERS: We started off, he was running on about eight to 10 knots and slowly picking up speed. I think by the time he was doing about 15 knots, we were still in the channel. And then the next thing you know, we were getting flashed an S.O.S. - we thought a boat that was there as well, it lost someone over the side. So it's always an emergency. And we had to give up following the Ocean Shield because there could be risk of life. RIPLEY: Yes, as you always have to do. That's the way it works. Everybody has to take care of each other, maritime (ph). Captain, thank you so much.
But, Carol, very dramatic to see this ship in action after hours of waiting today and we wanted to keep on speeding towards the search zone in the Indian Ocean some 1,100 miles from here. It's going to take three days to get there. But on this ship is some very hi-tech equipment that could be (INAUDIBLE) to solving the mystery of Flight 370. They have an underwater microphone. It's a giant microphone that can hear the ping from that black box recorder. But there's the problem, it only has a one mile radius and right now we have a search area the size of Poland. So it's very important that the aerial effort and the sea effort continue to find debris to zero in that search area and make it smaller so that we can put the high technology on the Ocean Shield to good use.
COSTELLO: Will Ripley reporting live for us on the Indian Ocean. Thanks so much.
Four weeks after Flight 370 vanished, search crews have, as you know, been unable to locate a single piece of debris from the plane. Yesterday, in an exclusive interview with CNN, the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, told us the search for that missing jet is ramping up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: Everyone wants to get to the bottom of this mystery. Everyone is united in their common grief, in their common anxiety to resolve this. I don't think we've got a whole lot of competing national pride at stake here. I think we got at stake here a whole lot of people who just want to solve the problem.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Malaysian officials say a new Australian joint coordination center will take charge of synchronizing search efforts in the coming days. Joining me now to discuss, CNN aviation analyst and former NTSB Director Peter Goelz, and CNN safety analyst and former FAA inspector David Soucie.
Welcome, gentlemen.
DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Good morning.
PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Hello.
COSTELLO: Good morning.
David, that Australian ship equipped with those pinger locaters is heading to an area the size of Poland or New Mexico. It just seems like a shot in the dark. Is it?
SOUCIE: Well, you have to understand, what they're doing is positioning it so that when they do find debris, and they're able to locate -- or narrow in a little bit on the impact point, that they'll have it there and ready. It may take two days, although at 15, 16 knots to that size of a ship, that's going to get there quicker. But I'm encouraged by the fact that they're at least getting it out there and that they have it - they have the ship rigged to tow that pinger.
COSTELLO: And, Peter, as David just said, it will take a couple of days for that ship to get to the area. The batteries in those black box start dying on Saturday. So, give us a ray of hope.
GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: I'm afraid I can't. I mean this is an enormous challenge. We've seen, over the last three weeks, exactly how difficult and how enormous the area is that we're searching. And, remember, this search area is identified based on suppositions. We believe this is the best place to search. We don't know that. We have no real, hard data that say this is the spot or this is the general area, even like we did with Air France 447. So we are really taking a long shot here.
COSTELLO: So, David, at best we're hoping for like some dumb luck out there in the ocean?
SOUCIE: Well, I wouldn't call it that. It's more of a hypothesis or best educated guess. However, as he pointed out, when you're educated only on information that has a low degree of credibility and a low degree of confidence, it's really difficult. But I want to talk about 447 just for a second if it's all right.
COSTELLO: Sure.
SOUCIE: Remember on that one the pingers were not working at all and so, yes, it was pretty futile with having the pinger locater detector go across the top of it. In this case, I hoping that the pingers still are working and that they'll narrow it down to a manageable area so that we can get the pingers going. And if we can get that far within the next four or five days, I'm pretty confident that we'll be able to pick up that pinger signal.
COSTELLO: Oh, I hope you're right. And, Peter, Malaysian authorities, they'll ask the United States for more equipment, I think, starting tomorrow or the next day. What exactly do they need?
GOELZ: Well, I think that you can't have too many vessels out searching for the pingers because their engine sounds will confuse the listening device. But I think once a decision is made that the pinger battery has expired, they're going to need an enormous amount of resources with underwater remote vehicles, perhaps submarines, to search for this -- for this missing plane.
COSTELLO: Peter Goelz and David Soucie, thanks, as always.
SOUCIE: Thank you.
GOELZ: Thank you.
COSTELLO: In other news this morning, artillery fire between North and South Korea this morning. It came after North Korea suddenly announced it would conduct live fire drills in the area. South Korea responded by firing 300 shells into North Korean waters. The exchange of artillery fire forced South Koreans living in the area to run for cover. This comes on the heels of North Korea hinting at more nuclear testing. Andrew Salmon joins me now from Seoul with more.
Good morning.
ANDREW SALMON, JOURNALIST: Hi.
COSTELLO: Bring us up to date on the latest that's happening there right now.
SALMON: Carol, nothing much has happened. This artillery exchange with both sides shooting into the waters close to the flash point northern limit line, the maritime border between the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea, took place between 12:15 and 3:30. Then the guns on both sides fell silent. Nothing has actually happened since. Things are actually reasonably calm here now. No one was hurt. There were no casualties. But, of course, the situation remains tense.
COSTELLO: And then the other development is about this nuclear test. And this is from the North Korean foreign ministry.
SALMON: Right.
COSTELLO: He said in a statement, "we would not rule out a new form of a nuclear test aimed at strengthening our nuclear deterrence. The U.S. had better ponder over there and stop acting rashly." What do they mean by that?
SALMON: Yes, your guess is as good as mine. We'll have to wait and see. But there's two possibilities. The one could be that if they conduct another nuclear test, it will be using a different form of fissile (ph) materials. That previous nuclear tests have used plutonium as the fuel. But they also have a uranium enrichment program. Possibly they're planning a test with uranium.
The second possibility is that they may have a smaller device. A device where they've compressed that fissile (ph) materials down into a size small enough to fit on top of a ballistic missile. If that's the case, that's very, very worrisome because that will give them the full capability they need. That will give them an actual warhead.
COSTELLO: Andrew Salmon reporting live from Seoul, South Korea. Thanks so much.
Crimean residents have set their clocks to run on Russian time. On Sunday, the Black Sea peninsula aligned its time zone with Moscow, jumping two hours ahead. The symbolic step was marked to celebrate the - was marked with celebration, rather, following Russia's annexation of the region from Ukraine earlier this month. In the meantime, Vladimir Putin's right-hand man, the Russia prime minister, is in Crimea for talks on development. He outlined plans for supporting business, agriculture and tourism. Mr. Medvedev also said securing the region's power and water supply are key steps to integration. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, holding a vigil and holding Malaysian officials accountable. Flight 370 families demanding answers. Paula Hancocks is in Kuala Lumpur.
Paula.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Malaysian authorities will hold what they call a high level briefing for grieving family members. International experts, including experts from China, will update the families on the investigation into Flight 370. Perhaps too little too late for those families who still believe Malaysia is hiding information. This candlelight vigil was held before today's regular briefing for family members in Beijing. Steve Wang, whose mother was one of the passengers, organized it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE WANG, FAMILY COMMITTEE (through translator): We do not want to give up our hope. They are definitely still waiting for us somewhere. We hope that they will come home safe. Even if that hope is so minute. Even if there's only a 1 percent chance, we will still give our 100 percent effort to try and bring them home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Families are turning up the pressure on Malaysian officials to respond to their demands.
CNN's Paula Hancocks is live in Kuala Lumpur with that part of the story. Good morning.
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Carol.
Well, the past few weeks have been completely unbearable for these families as you can imagine and some of the Chinese families have actually traveled here right now to Kuala Lumpur to try and find out any information they can about their missing loved ones.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HANCOCKS (voice-over): Praying for lost souls. Chinese relatives of the missing airline passengers seek refuge in a Buddhist temple, looking for comfort in the words of a monk. This woman says I really hope my husband and other passengers come home. The monk replies, I hope they'll come back in peace. But the 239 people on board the missing flight, 154 were Chinese citizens.
"Chinese are kind-hearted people", this relative says, "that we can clearly distinguish between good and evil. We'll never forgive those who hid truth and the criminal who delay the rescue mission."
These families traveled from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur Sunday to be closer to the investigation. And they hope to information.
They accuse Malaysian officials of withholding information since the plane vanished more than three weeks ago despite government claims they are being transparent. They chant their demands.
We want evidence, we want truth, we want our family.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HANCOCKS: And we're well into fourth week out finding any indication or anything about this plane.
And today, Carol, the acting transportation minister was actually asked what will you do? Have you discussed the fact that this plane may never actually be found. And in that press conference he basically said for the sake of the families I am not willing to discuss that publicly, at least not at this moment. So clearly, it is something that has been considered but out of respect for the families they are not publicly discussing it yet -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Paula Hancock, reporting live from Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia's transport officer also insisted his government is not hiding anything although many wonder why authorities refuse to release transcripts between the plane and air traffic controllers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HISHAMMUDDIN BIN HUSSEIN, ACTING MALAYSIAN TRANSPORTATION MINISTER: Only those who are doing the investigations can give us the OK. If there comes a time when this can be shared with the public without concern by all means I will declare it. We're not hiding anything. We're just following the procedure that is being set.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: With me now, Bob Francis, former vice chairman of the NTSB.
Good morning.
BOB FRANCIS, FORMER NTSB VICE CHAIRMAN: Good morning.
COSTELLO: In your mind, are Malaysian authorities hiding anything?
FRANCIS: I don't think they are hiding anything. But I do wonder sometimes that the most recent thing, a minister saying that he thinks that there's some reason for hope throughout this, the Malaysian government has not, have not shown at all, they've been -- they've delayed and I can see why the families would be unhappy given what they had to put up with from the Malaysian government up to now.
COSTELLO: We found the word "hope" used in the public briefing this morning unusual too or confusing, I should say because did he mean there's hope that these passengers might be alive or did he mean that there's hope we will find some sort of debris in the water? We couldn't tell.
FRANCIS: Well, I think that, again, if it is possible to construe it as the former, it's the height of irresponsibility. And before you get up before the world and start talking you better have some idea of what you're going to say and how it's going to be interpreted.
COSTELLO: Let's talk about those full cockpit transcripts because everybody wants those released. The Malaysian authorities say we can't release them yet. Is that unusual in such an investigation?
FRANCIS: I think it would be unusual not to release transcripts. But then again the Malaysian government continues to surprise me.
COSTELLO: But after 9/11 the full cockpit transcripts weren't made public until what, 2004 or something like that.
FRANCIS: I can't remember to tell you the truth. But that's a little far back for me.
COSTELLO: Right. I understand. I'm just wondering if these transcripts are part of a criminal investigation, would they release such a thing right now to the public?
FRANCIS: Well, that's probably a justification for not releasing, if they consider this maybe a criminal act.
COSTELLO: Last question for you, because I know you've taken part in many of these kinds of investigations, do you think they'll find the black boxes before the batteries die?
FRANCIS: I think that the chances are enormously remote and I think even when the signals cease from the recorders, I think the finding of those recorders ultimately is very, very slim chance.
COSTELLO: Bob Francis, thanks for your insight as always.
FRANCIS: You're welcome.
COSTELLO: We'll have more on Flight 370 in just a minute, but first no diplomatic progress has been made as tens of thousands of Russian troops gather on Ukraine's border. CNN's Karl Penhaul is there now.
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, just a few miles to the border, the Ukrainian military is facing the possible invasion by the Russians. Very seriously they are digging in tanks.
We've got a lot more to talk about. We'll see you on the other side of the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: The Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev is in Crimea today. He's the highest level Russian official to visit the region since it voted to join Russia earlier this month. In the meantime, Ukraine's military is preparing as up to 50,000 Russia troops gather on its border.
Karl Penhaul is on that border right now.
Take it away, Karl. PENHAUL: Carol, in the last few minutes we've been hearing from the Ukrainian government that's there's a change across on the Russian side of the border. They tell us that Russian troops are repositioning. In fact, rather than pulling back from the border after those talks between John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov last night, the Russians are pulling more troops to an eastern sector to the northeastern sector there.
How is that playing out on the ground here? Ukrainian army is reacting. In the last hours they have been bringing up more armor to defend strategic positions like this main battle tank that's now being dug in and camouflaging it. Many others dotted along with anti- aircraft weapons.
Not only the military that's in this fight in case the Russians invade. The civilian population is also reacting. Let's look what's happening in one village up on the border.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PENHAUL (voice-over): Faith they can avoid a war with the Russians but just in case a little prayer. This church sits on eastern Ukraine's border. Its priest, once an officer in the Soviet army, can't believe his old comrades will invade but if they do he's telling his flock to stand and fight.
FATHER MIKHAIL ZORIVCHAK, VILLAGE PRIEST (through translator): I will preach our people to defend our homeland from any invader. This is the land of our grand fathers. I'll pray and if they need me I'm ready to join them to protect our freedom.
PENHAUL: Luba Kostroma has brought his 3-year-old grandson Alexei for communion. His son is an army reservist. If conflict comes he'll be on the front line.
LUBA KOSTROMA, MOTHER OF UKRAINIAN RESERVIST (through translator): Every mother worries when her son is mobilized. We under our young men have to protect the homeland. It's painful that our sons must go to war in the 21st century. So, we're praying for peace.
PENHAUL: But faith doesn't line only in divine hands. In a nearby potato field Ukraine troops mine a camera. They've spotted tanks, attack helicopters and even missile batteries.
At a border checkpoint, Ukrainian guards shrug off the threat of war, but a fall back plan seems to be in place.
(on camera): The Russian border is just a few hundred yards away. We've come across this, a series of what appear to be recently dug defensive positions including this trench but right now there's no sign of any Ukrainian troops.
(voice-over): The open farmland is classic tank terrain. The Ukrainian villages say their best chance would be deep in the swamps where the grand fathers known as partisans waged a guerilla fight during World War II. Our trip along the frontier is cut short.
(on camera): We were stopped by the border guard. They told us that's a closed military area. We have no authorization to be there so they are escorting us out.
(voice-over): If things do turn bad, Father Mikhail and other villagers believe they have to tactical advantages over the Russians.
ZORIVCHAK (through translator): We know the forest and swamps like the back of our hands. It will be very hard to fight us. Truth will always win. God is on our side.
PENHAUL: Even so, the mood here is somber.
Mothers afraid they may lose their sons, Ukrainians afraid they may have to battle old neighbors. There's not been to ask for whom the bell tolls.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PENHAUL: This morning, Carol, we started off taking a look in one of the forests over there. The Ukrainian troops have set up an emergency medevac field hospital, a lot of tent, there a lot of logistic, a lot of supplies going on.
And while that was happening then we come to this. We drive along one of the main highway, and dug in alongside. It's a T-64 tank. It is a main battle tank.
