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Families: "We Need Evidence, We Need Truth"; Washington Landslide Deaths Rise To 21; L.A. Fault Could Cause "Quake From Hell"; Twist And Turns In The Hunt For Flight 370; Russian Troops Near Ukraine Border

Aired March 31, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Families in Beijing were given a technical briefing, but Malaysian officials deny their request for maintenance and repair records of MH-370, citing this ongoing investigation. Outside of the briefing, officials also declined to meet one demand from these families, an apology. Many families are outraged that Malaysian authorities said the flight crashed with no physical evidence to back it up. The response from officials today, well, it's not helping.

CNN's Paula Hancocks is live for us right now in Kuala Lumpur. Paula, I know that some families flew from China to meet with airline and government officials. Did they get that apology?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not at this point, Brooke. No, they have not gotten that apology. Now dozens of the Chinese families of the passengers on that flight did fly on Sunday. They wanted to be here basically because this is where the investigation is going on. This is where some of the press briefings are going on. They believe that if they were physically here, they might actually get more information.

Now they are asking for an apology, saying that the prime minister shouldn't have said that the flight had crashed, but the response that we heard from the acting transportation minister today was that he didn't use the word crash. He used a different word. And so of course, that's not what the families want to hear.

The technicality of a word is not interesting to them. They basically want an apology. But of course, from the Malaysian authorities' point of view, they don't have the answers to the questions that these families want. It really is a very difficult situation -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: So you have the families there, some of whom have chosen to be in Kuala Lumpur to take part in these briefings, but then you have some families who have opted to stay home and some of them are having an even tougher time.

HANCOCKS: Absolutely. We are talking about the husbands and the wives and the relatives of the passengers. But also there was a cabin crew, which we haven't heard too much about. I spoke to the husband of one of the flight attendants and this is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) HANCOCKS (voice-over): Poong Wai Yueng's 10-year-old daughter and 4- year-old son keep asking where she is. Eighteen years as a Malaysia Airlines flight attendant, she was working aboard MH-370.

LEE KHIM FATT, HUSBAND OF MH370 FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Mommy is going to take a bit longer to come home this time. I even promised them, I'm going to bring her home. I have no idea where she is now. Now, I'm not sure whether I could bring her home, you see.

HANCOCKS: Lee Khim Fatt asked me what he should tell his daughter. He says Poong is caring. She is loving. He speaks in the present tense.

FATT: Of course, I am still hoping for God, God's miracle, but it's like what we want is the reality, the true story.

HANCOCKS: Showing me mobile photos of his wife, he tells me he is angry at the way he has been treated. His wife was part of the cabin crew. He feels the airline tells the media more than what it tells him. He says he gets most of his information from televised press conferences, part of the reason he has hired a lawyer.

MANUEL VON RIBBECK, ATTORNEY FOR FLIGHT ATTENDANT'S HUSBAND: It is not their fault that this happened to the plane. Therefore, they have to be compensated for their damages.

HANCOCKS: Lee and Poong were together for 20 years. He says they were happy. Now, she is lost. Lee says he has lost all direction. Paula Hancocks, CNN, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HANCOCKS: So I asked in the press conference today whether or not they had discussed the possibility that this plane would not ever be found. He basically said for the sake of the families and out of respect of the families, that's not something that they can talk about publicly at least not yet -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: How do you even respond to that? Paula Hancocks in Kuala Lumpur, thank you so much for sharing that interview with us. The families and the facts and the timeline. We put the timeline together of all the twists and turns in the investigation just to show you how really frustrating this mystery has become.

Plus it is being called unprecedented. Southern California rocked by a series of earthquakes raising fears that this one fault line in particular could be devastating. We will explain next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Rescue teams in Washington State are battling stormy weather as they keep hunting for survivors of a deadly landslide. Steady rains have caused the nearby river to rise a foot since Friday. And firefighters says infection and contaminated fields are now a major concern. Chemicals from household products, bacteria from bodies have saturated the mud and the debris. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. RICHARD BURKE, BOLBANUA FIRE DEPARTMENT: Most people taped their boots and pants together so that we don't get anybody infected. We are worried about dysentery. We are worried about tetanus. We are worried about contamination. The last thing we want to do is take any of these contaminants out of here and take them into town back to the family.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The U.S. Army has set up decontamination sites with soap and hot water so those crews can wash off and keep working. The number of confirmed dead stands at 21, 30 people are still missing.

Southern California is counting up the damage from a weekend of quakes that startled people for two straight days. Three quakes rocked the L.A. basin within a 24-hour period. Seismologists are describing the one word as unprecedented.

The earthquake happened along the Puente Hills Thrust Fault line. This is a broad area that runs up through downtown Los Angeles and west towards Hollywood and Beverly Hills. So when you think of that, you see that map, the danger here if a major quake, not even the so- called big one everyone is talking about, but a sizable earthquake hits along this fault line, this is an example of how far it would spread. The damage and loss of life in the heart of Los Angeles could absolutely be catastrophic. So CNN meteorologist Chad Myers is here with props to help explain the danger from what I understand, the shaking, which direction it shakes. All beginning with tectonic plates.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: The normal San Andreas Fault is going to do this. It's going to slide. You have seen the pictures of the fence that no longer lines up with the fence, right? We've seen that in a hundred history books. That's not what kind of fault we have here.

We have something called a thrust fault. This is a slip strike. It will slide. We have almost like two or three ring notebooks. There are different angles and when this fault shakes, this plate or part of the plate is going to go higher. So all of L.A. at some point, it could be jolted up a foot or two because there is more distance here.

Everything gets pushed up and this is thrust fault this weekend. It really jolted people because everything was pushed up, but not everything gets pushed up at the same amount. It would be great if the whole city up by 2 feet, everything stayed together, but over here goes up by a foot or two. As the earth goes literally higher into the sky by a couple of feet by the thrust fault.

BALDWIN: So with this thrust fault that could be the most dangerous one given the maps and what it runs through, how active is it? Do we know?

MYERS: We believe about four big earthquakes in 10,000 years. That doesn't seem like a lot, but we don't know when the last one was so get to think about this. These are two things that are getting pressurized every day and there is a little bit more pressure and some day they are going to pop. It popped this weekend.

But little earthquakes are better than one big one. Theirs is all the faults all along California from San Andreas all the way down here to Southern California itself. They are past the river site. If the big one happens it will be 30 miles from L.A. rupturing along the San Andreas Fault.

If this ruptures at a 7.1 or 7.5, it is going to pop, literally pop Los Angeles up like a cork. It's going to take that three-ring notebooks and they are going to slide and the whole area is going to pop up. Think about this. Think of all of these buildings in downtown.

We are talking from La Habra all the way to Hollywood. If everything goes up, one foot here, two feet here, all of a sudden, the foundations are not straight and power lines are not straight and infrastructure would be a mess. So that's why only found in 1999 and haven't heard about this very much because it hasn't popped very often, but this weekend obviously it did.

BALDWIN: And there is no heads up.

MYERS: No. Not really. There are some systems that will say OK, an earthquake happened here was 20 miles away and will be to you in 2 seconds. There is the alarm siren, but if it pops right under L.A., there will be no absolutely no warning at all.

BALDWIN: Scary, Chad Myers, thank you.

MYERS: You're welcome.

Coming up next, we have put together this timeline for you of all of the twists and the turns from this investigation in the past three weeks of Flight 370 from the night the jet disappeared. You will see this emotional roller coaster for these families. Plus this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In just the last few hours, this machine, an armored vehicle is armed with a cannon as well, has been dug into a position here. They put some camouflage, some pine trees over the top to hide it. The Russian border is that way, five miles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That is our correspondent. Karl Penhaul is on the border of Ukraine and Russia. Yes, he is standing next to a tank. That tank is one of the military vehicles Ukraine is moving into position to defend itself from a possible invasion. We will take you live to the border for a closer look at what military moves both sides are making. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BALDWIN: We are now officially in week number four of the hunt for Flight 370 and we've only just learned that the final word spoken from the cockpit were not "All right, good night," but "Good night, Malaysian 370." Just another confusing walk back by Malaysia here. Each new lead bringing more mystery.

CNN'S Amy La Porte takes a look at the timeline of the twists and turns since the plane first vanished from the radar.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE_

AMY LA PORTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On March 8 at 12:41 a.m., Malaysia Airline Fight 370 takes off from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board. It's bound for Beijing, but it never arrives.

ERIN BURNETT, HOST, CNN'S "OUTFRONT": It was expected to land at 6:30 a.m. local time. That plane is two-and-a-half hours late.

LA PORTE: March 9, two men registered as passengers come forward saying they were not on the plane. Their passports were stolen.

JAKE TAPPER, HOST, CNN'S "THE LEAD": We've known that at least two passengers were traveling with stolen passports raising fears that terrorism may be involve.

LA PORTE: As for the search, the Gulf of Thailand in the South China Sea comes up empty. March 11, Interpol identified the two passengers who used the stolen passports. Iranian nationals, the ruling, no connection to terrorism. Then an explosive development, we learned that Flight 370 made a mysterious turn to the west.

WOLF BLITZER, HOST, CNN'S "THE SITUATION ROOM": Was the missing plane deliberately flown towards that remote island chain in the Indian Ocean?

LA PORTE: March 15, Malaysia's prime minister confirms Flight 370 flew for about seven hours after its final transmission. This news enough to end the search in the South China Sea expanding the search zone some 4500 miles. The question now, how far could this plane have gone?

March 16, the focus turns to the two pilots. Authorities raid their homes. Confiscating the flight simulator owned by the captain. March 20, our first satellite pictures of two objects.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: The prime minister saying they have found objects that they believe to be credible.

LA PORTE: The next day, March 21, lines are drawn around a section of the Southern Indian Ocean. A possible crash site in one of the most hostile places on earth.

TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: It's the most inaccessible spot you can imagine on the face of the earth.

LA PORTE: This would be the first of many satellite sightings. French satellites, Thai sightings and more from the Chinese. Each possible debris heading nowhere. March 24, the Malaysian prime minister calls an unscheduled press briefing.

NAJIB RAZAK, MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER: Flight MH-370 ended in the Southern Indian Ocean.

LA PORTE: With no evidence of the plane itself, a text message went out from Malaysia Airlines confirming the prime minister's grim announcement. None of those on board survived. The news just too much for the grief-stricken families. Some lashing out at the media. Others fainting and taken out on stretchers.

March 28, three weeks into the search after days of scouring the section of the Southern Indian Ocean, search crews find out they have been looking in the wrong spot.

BALDWIN: The search zone today shifting by hundreds of miles.

LA PORTE: As soon as the search moved, possible debris is spotted and another, more and more sightings, most turning out to be trash. As the satellite and visual sightings come in and the search continues, the world is still waiting for the words, the plane has been found. Amy La Porte, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Amy, thank you. Bad weather made it tough for these pilots searching for the missing plane. CNN's Martin Savidge and pilot trainer, Mitchell Casado join me inside the flight simulator. So guys, can you show me when you talk about these bad conditions, what's it like flying low?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. We can. I mean, you know, we will simulate it as best we can. What's neat about this simulator is that it actually ties into the weather so that it knows what the weather conditions are in any part of the world where you can program it. We have essentially taken off from Perth and headed west in the direction of what would be this new search area.

Now the simulator has replicated the weather conditions. We should point out, of course, it is night time there, but for the purposes of visualizing it, we made it daylight. When you look at this word about it, it's 2,000 feet up.

MITCHELL CASADO, PILOT TRAINER: We are 2,000 feet up, 177 miles out from Perth directly west. Nothing but ocean.

SAVIDGE: If you look out on the horizon, it's difficult to where the ocean ends if you will and the sky picks up. It's very mixed. I will point out, why don't you take us down lower, Mitchell? The weather conditions like this, it is not that bad, you don't have the blinding sun hitting your face.

You instead have more of a gray-like cloud cover overhead. That diffuses the light and allows it to be less harsh bouncing back. If you are looking by the naked eye which in many cases that's what they are doing. Not terrible conditions. There is light rain and at times it can be obscuring by the rain.

Otherwise, certainly conditions could be worse. This again is what the simulator is replicating what it knows are the weather conditions. We are talking about fatigue. You are looking out at something like this. There is a relative fatigue you can get.

CASADO: You are staring at a style and it's like flying over the arctic with a lot of snow with white out conditions. You can't discern the horizon from anything else. We take frequent shifts, 30 minutes, 45 minutes max. You get in.

SAVIDGE: If you drop it down on the deck and you see the sense of speed and the other factor that comes into play, search aircraft are not going to moving at a tremendous high speed because otherwise the terrain and everything else will whiz by you so quickly you haven't been able to get a good assertation of what it was you saw.

Again this is simulating the sky conditions and you can see from here and know with the camera, it may not look the same. A good distance here as you look out on the water with these conditions, very interesting.

BALDWIN: Sure at least we know that the conditions once they establish that new search area the conditions have been better, closer to land, to maximize flight times to look for possible debris. Gentlemen, thank you as always, Martin and Mitch. We appreciate that.

Coming up, as we learn the actual last words from Flight 370. We are being told there was, quote, "Nothing sinister" in the conversations between the pilots and air traffic controller. So why not release the entire transcripts? There may be a very good answer to that.

Also ahead as fears rise, Russia is getting ready for more action here against Ukraine. Moscow reportedly beefing up the presence along the Ukrainian border. Live picture, CNN is there for a firsthand look. Do not miss this next live shot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Russian troops are ready to go should Vladimir Putin order a land invasion of Ukraine. The pro-western web site in Moscow is publishing links to video that shows these Russian tanks being hauled by train towards the border. In a phone call today with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Putin reportedly said he has pulled some forces back, but Russia is reportedly moving food and parts and medicine into position and event erected a field hospital.

Ukraine is trying to toughen up its border, but troops are staring down some 50,000 Russians. That number keeps growing. CNN's Karl Penhaul is live with me now. He is within 5 miles of that extremely tense border. Karl, were the Russians to come hurdling over the border, what kind of fight could the Ukrainians give them?

PENHAUL: Well, that are really is the question, isn't it, Brooke? Because of course we know about Russia's military might. The Americans and the Ukrainians have told us in the last few days they have been well-equip force. They have a very well-funded force and a force that can move quickly. We also know that out in Crimea when it came to blows there, the Ukrainian military didn't fight. They surrendered and defected across to the Russian side.

Here I think things are going to be very different. The Ukrainian military spent the day here digging in. They certainly think things are getting worse and not better. They think the threat of invasion is a very palpable threat. Digging in vehicles like this. This has a cannon on the front. There two 64 soviet era tanks as well. They have been pulled into strategic positions in case the Russians advance and have attack helicopters as well as tanks.

But the military situation is not the only one here. There is the civilian response. We spent days traveling along the villages along the border. The young men are dividing themselves up into self defense committees. They say if the Russians roll across, they will launch a partisan Guerrilla war using the swamps and the forests as their bases as well. Even old ladies want to do their part. They and have been bringing big jars of pickles, food, rice and other supplies to support the Ukrainian troops as well.

So, I think the sentiment here is that, if the Russians do roll across, the Ukrainians are going to give them a fight -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: They are readying themselves, it sounds like, Karl Penhaul for us miles from that border there, the Russian-Ukrainian border. Thank you so much.