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Search Zone Moves; Flight 370 Investigation; Cockpit Security; Search for Flight 370

Aired April 02, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We've got to leave it there, but we'll continue tomorrow. Thanks very much.

That's it for me. Thanks very much for watching. Be back 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Another special two hour edition of THE SITUATION ROOM. NEWSROOM with Deb Feyerick starts right now.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Deborah Feyerick, filling in for Brooke Baldwin.

First up, after five days searching half (ph) of the Indian Ocean for the wreckage of Flight 370, the search has once again been moved. But unlike last time, this isn't because of inaccurate (ph) data analysis, this is because they say this area has been scoured to the point that no new objects are being cited. Now, with no sign of the plane there, searchers are turning their focus to an adjoining area to the east.

But is this premature? As for the investigation, we now have confirmation that all 227 passengers have been cleared of any sinister role in the plane's disappearance. Malaysia's police inspector general admitting that this has been deemed a criminal investigation since March 16th. The same day Malaysia realized the plane had been deliberately flown off course. The investigation into the passengers is focused on four specific areas, hijacking, sabotage, personal issues and psychological issues.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is a criminal investigation. That's why I'm not able to share with you. As we have said earlier, only the passengers has been cleared. The rest, no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: And by the rest, what he means is the flight crew. The criminal investigation into them still continuing. And by that we mean they are still questioning anybody who knew the pilots and the crew.

For more on the search I'm going to go live to CNN's Will Ripley in Perth, Australia.

Will, what do you know about the new search area and why they decided to move it? Does it have anything to do with the currents, for example? WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we know the area is farther east, so closer to the Australian coastline, less than 1,000 miles now. We know that there have possibly been some new objects spotted in this area. And as you mentioned, they scoured the old area and haven't found anything. So this is an new effort to continue utilizing all of the assets that are in place right now in the most effective way.

You know, 10 planes in the area every day with 100 people on board. We have 1,000 sailors and nine ships. The Ocean Shield is due to arrive in just hours from now, possibly later today, into the search zone as well. And then we have that British submarine in place as well. All of this technology, all of these people, all of these planes and yet for days now, nothing.

FEYERICK: And the submarine that you're talking about, that's being brought in now. That can detect pings. And the black boxes can emit sounds of two nautical miles. Are some people saying that these should have been brought in earlier, or, again, does it go to the point with no search area, you know, how do you even know where to listen?

RIPLEY: That's the -- that's the real question here is, where do you start looking when you have such a large search area. For this technology to work effectively, the size of the search area needs to be reduced at least by 100 times. It needs to be 100 times smaller than it is right now.

You know, the Malaysian prime minister, Najib Razak, he's here in Perth tonight. Later today he's going to be here at the Pierce Air Base meeting with the personnel here. He has a meeting with the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott. This is the first time that the two prime minister will be with each other face-to-face. And you can bet they're going to be talking about the search operation, trying to figure out where do we go from here and also may be getting some more clarity on what will happen to the debris if and when it is recovered and brought here to Australia.

FEYERICK: All right, Will Ripley for us, thanks. We'll check in with you a little later.

Well, let's focus on controversial announcements on Malaysia's Flight 370 investigation. A Malaysian official told us today that it's been a criminal probe since March 16th. Yes, Malaysia did not mention a shred of criminal or suspicious evidence about anyone on board the plane. So you may ask, how can an investigation be declared criminal if you don't have evidence? Well, joining me to discuss, aviation correspondent Richard Quest, and expert airman and retired lieutenant colonel in the Royal Air Force, Michael Kay.

So in many respects, is this just semantics? Usually investigators will start with the worst possible scenario and work their way backwards. They have to rule out that it's not criminal before they find it's a malfunction. Is that accurate?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: I think that's part of the point. But this is the police we're talking about. And the police investigate criminal activities. Now, notice, he said, this is a criminal investigation. He didn't say the whole thing is a criminal investigation. So what he is saying is, from the police's point of view, they are looking at it from a criminal point of view, but the investigation itself, the Malaysian investigation, the air investigation, that is still a concern with what happened -- where is the plane and what happened.

FEYERICK: So, in a way, adding a lot more layers on some levels of confusion again because everybody makes the point that somebody entered a new code, a new programming code. It could possibly have been that the pilot was trying to save the plane and try to bring it back to land, not criminal, but absent of evidence, it's suspicious. Michael.

LT. COL. MICHAEL KAY, ROYAL AIR FORCE (RET.): I think the key aspect over here is that we need to keep looking at all the facts and keeping an open mind. What we don't need to do is jump to the end state, which means it could be a criminal investigation, it could be sabotage, it could be hijacking. Yes, we can't take those things off the table because we don't have enough evidence to take them off the table. But what we need to do is keep an open mind, look at the facts and keep building the jigsaw puzzle, because that's all we've got at the moment.

QUEST: And the pieces of that jigsaw puzzle, those that have been put on the table, do now lend credence to starting a criminal investigation. But -- and that is why he's -- you're looking at me suspiciously.

FEYERICK: Yes, indeed I am. You can read into it what you want. No, but go ahead.

QUEST: And so as more pieces of the jigsaw get put on the table, so the picture starts to become ever clearer. But at the moment, it does start to move towards the fact, we know somebody did something deliberate, we know the plane was turned and all these things but we don't know who and we don't know how and we don't know why.

FEYERICK: And we don't -- exactly, intent, motivation.

Let's talk about the cargo, because we haven't spent a lot of time talking about that. You know, and two years ago there was a -- or actually more years ago now, I think it was three or four years ago, the cartridge bomb that somebody attempted to send in the cargo hold. Were all the packages, both commercial but also suitcases, x-rayed as far as you know, and were -- doesn't that have to be cleared in terms of who was sending what and where it was going to?

KAY: Well, I think -- I think, again, you know, we're jumping to this sort of sinister conclusion that it could be explosive or inflammable and therefore this could have happened. I've got friend who fly for major airlines and I was speaking to one the other day who told me that on one of his last trips, they had $93 million in the hold.

FEYERICK: Right. KAY: Now that's a substantial amount of cash. And if someone knows that that airline, on that day on that flight has that, then there could be a motive there. I mean it's -- you know, the whole piece is important. Identifying what's in the hold is important, but it doesn't necessarily lend itself to an explosive.

FEYERICK: But will it have been checked?

QUEST: The airline --

FEYERICK: Will all those -- will all the baggages have been checked and cleared immediately?

QUEST: Yes. There is -- if it -- if the baggage was not checked, then the procedures were not followed, because Malaysia, since it was an international flight from KL to Beijing, the regulations say that all the bags have to be scanned. The cargo, it's a different matter because cargo tends to be scanned in a different way. But although there will be a manifest of the cargo. And we've already been told by the airline that there was nothing untoward (ph) in the cargo, because they told us about the batteries.

FEYERICK: Correct.

KAY: And you also have to zone back into, where was the mayday call? Where was the pan (ph) call? Where was the emergency 7700 on the transponder, if indeed it was something that lended itself to a structural failure of the aircraft.

FEYERICK: We have heard about a couple of things that were in the cargo hold. For example, the lithium batteries that you mentioned. There was a theory that perhaps they leaked, that filtered into the air system, maybe knocked the passengers unconscious. There's a mention today on CNN, mangostein (ph), a tropical medicinal fruit, and whether that may have had something to do with it. Again, you think about the circulation between cargo and cabin and it's a steady stream of airflow.

QUEST: Yes, it is, but it's a well-known stream of airflow.

FEYERICK: OK.

QUEST: And so the relationship between the cargo and the cabin is not something that the aviation industry has suddenly discovered.

FEYERICK: Right.

QUEST: They are -- they are aware of the potential, and that's why -- you would know this much better than me, you know, the (INAUDIBLE) gas that would -- that could extinguish. The senses that's down there. The entire range of options to deal with because it is so -- Value Jet in the United States showed quite clearly the absolute devastating deadly nature of a fire in the cargo hold.

KAY: And I just don't envision (ph) this notion of all of a sudden 239 people passing out at exactly the same time. The pilots are trained in any emergency that involves a decompression or anything that might compromise the oxygen supply, the first thing they do is put on their oxygen masks and they put it on themselves and then they start dealing with the emergency.

FEYERICK: Assuming you know that you've been exposed to something you shouldn't be breathing.

Very quickly, as a pilot, were you ever worried about some of the cargo that you may have been transporting on one of those planes?

KAY: Look, it's not -- they will know what cargo they are -- they are taking on board. There are lots of regulations and rules that surround the types of cargo that you can take on board.

FEYERICK: Yes.

KAY: And they will have been tested for a flight at 35,000 feet for these types of things. So it's not a concern that I would place high on the priority.

FEYERICK: Fascinating theory, though, that you suggest that one plane had $93 million. If that was part of the motive and that money went missing, certainly a very interesting heist.

KAY: It's a bit -- it's a bit -- it's a bit Italian job, isn't it?

FEYERICK: A little bit. A little bit.

KAY: Yes.

FEYERICK: Michael Kay, Richard Quest, as always, such a pleasure.

QUEST: Good to see you.

FEYERICK: Thank you.

Well, coming up, Malaysia Airlines stepping up security in their cockpits. Find out which rules they're changing. And a pilot tells me what they're missing.

Plus, "Lord of the Rings" and "Hobbit" director Peter Jackson sending his private plane to the search. Hear what his jet can do that perhaps the government ones cannot.

And the search area moving once again, but are they giving up on the previous area too early? This is CNN's special coverage. .

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: Welcome back to CNN's special coverage of Flight 370. I'm Deborah Feyerick.

A new development we're following today in the disappearance, cockpit security. Malaysia Airlines now stepping up, putting new rules in place. I want to go straight to our CNN justice reporter Evan Perez in Washington. Evan, interesting that for Malaysia Airlines these are new rules. What are they specifically?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Deb, what officials are telling us in Malaysia is that these new rules are being put in place specifically because -- in reaction to the disappearance of Flight 370. Among the rules, the new rules, neither the pilot or the copilot or the captain is allowed to be inside the cockpit alone. This is something that is just now standard as a result of these new rules. The senior cabin steward is required to be in the cockpit with either the first officer or the captain when the other one is gone.

And there's also an increase in security outside of the cockpit so that let's say whenever the door is open to allow someone to go out, that nobody can rush the cockpit and perhaps create a safety hazard that way.

And, you know, one of the things all this reminds us is that, you know, the Malaysian authorities seem to be focused on cockpit security in the aftermath of this incident, Deb.

FEYERICK: (INAUDIBLE) so interesting. I mean you think about that and obviously the reference and everything is being looked at and parsed and analyzed. Every word, every comment, every period. But they say the changes are positive in nature and directly relate to the MH-370 incident. The suggestion possibly that if one of the pilots were left alone that perhaps he did some sort of a suicide maneuver. Is that the suggestion as to why they're now implementing this?

PEREZ: You know, they're not being specific. I mean they're certainly not explaining every single part of these -- of these new rules. But I -- you know, as we've been reporting here in the last few days, you know, the increased focus of the investigation is on whatever was going on inside the cockpit. Either the two pilots or perhaps someone who might have been able to get access to the cockpit and perhaps was able to do something to bring this plane down. So the Malaysian authorities seem to be reacting to that part of their investigation. We don't know exactly what they found because they haven't -- they haven't released any of that publicly. But we do know that there's a lot of focus on the two pilots and on the safety procedures inside the cockpit.

FEYERICK: All right, Evan Perez, thank you so much. Appreciate that.

And I want to continue this conversation with retired United Airlines Captain Kit Darby.

Captain Darby, you think about these security measures. We take them for granted here in the United States. Surprising to you that maybe a pilot was left alone, a cockpit door wasn't secured? What is your take on this?

CAPTAIN KIT DARBY, RETIRED UNITED AIRLINES CAPTAIN: Well, not unusual outside and United States. Most U.S. carriers have more thorough procedures. I can't discuss the specific procedures for security reasons, but I can say that we have an increased level of awareness here. These same rules are in place in the United States already. So that -- it's a good addition, but now that we focus back on the cockpit, we have to look, you know, very carefully at everyone involved, particularly the pilots, the last ones in control, and we have to look at any religious, political, family issues they might have been dealing with. We have to focus on a whole range of aspects. Everyone appears to have been cleared except the crew and the last one that had control of the airplane for sure were the pilots.

FEYERICK: It's fascinating because there is so much information that is fed in and from the airplane. But one thing we never see is images from inside the cockpit once that plane takes off. There's potentially the capability. Is that something that airline pilots would fight, the ability even to take sort of time sequence snapshots from inside that cockpit just to see that everything is as it should be? That whoever's meant to be in there is there. You think there would be pushback on that?

DARBY: Well, there is some resistance to it from pilots and no one wants to invite a camera into their workplace on a constant basis. At the same time, there (INAUDIBLE) the technology is there. It's easy enough to do. We have sound. Many airlines broadcast the radio communication. That's part of the environment. So it seems to be becoming much more popular. Certainly we can see the impetus for it now. I can tell you there is pushback from pilots. I think anyone, perhaps other than here on the set, would be unfavorably inclined against having a camera in their workplace continuously.

FEYERICK: Sure. Of course. Of course. Of course, the flipside of that is possible safety. But, yes.

Captain Kit Darby, thank you for your insights.

DARBY: Thank you.

FEYERICK: And coming up, the search area for missing Flight 370 has changed again. Why is that? How the searches has changed over the course of the investigation, that's next.

Plus, a first in the search for the missing plane. How a nuclear submarine -- that's right, a nuclear submarine is taking the hunt well below the ocean surface. But is it too soon to start looking beneath the waves or is it too little, too late. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: now that the search for Flight 370 has shifted east, where exactly are the teams looking? The focus is nearly 700 miles northeast of where crews had been last week. That is closer to the Australian coast. Tom Foreman is mapping the search area.

And, Tom, what section of the ocean are we talking about? Are these shallower waters, the area of the coastline, the underwater terrain?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Parts of it might be a little bit more shallow, Deb, but let's take a look at this general area. We're talking about targeting this area right up in here generally. And it might be a little bit shallower. But throughout the area, we've been talking about somewhere between one and three miles deep. It's difficult working terrain no matter how you go about it.

And look at how this has evolved. If you go and look at the search areas here, if you look at the general searching that happened in this area, this is where we were back on March 18th and then look at the progression day by day as they have moved the search area. And look at how muddy and confused this gets. On and on and on they got to where we are today, all the way up here on April 2nd. All of this happening -- let me run through that again so you can just watch in the wide shot here. Look at how that all layers in there, Deb. It's just a tremendously confusing mess out there as they try to close in on an area. And all of this is conjecture. Again, they haven't found one thing to tell them that any of these are the right areas, but they're betting that they're somehow getting into the right areas.

And I want to point out one other thing, Deb. When you talk about what they're searching for out here, think about it this way. They're not really just searching for the plane as such, because we have a sense of how big this is. But if you based it on the Air France crash, you'd be talking about a debris field that would be at least three miles square by now and maybe a whole lot bigger. That's how big Air France was in the immediate days after the crash. This one could be much bigger now. And yet, if you think of all the possible search areas that they had been considering, they're looking for something three miles square in an area about three million square miles. So it's really a huge challenge, Deb, and remains so.

FEYERICK: Really remarkable. I know looking for pieces that are between 20 and 60 feet long, wide, big. So, all right, Tom Foreman, thank you for that. We appreciate it.

FOREMAN: Sure.

FEYERICK: And I want to bring in CNN safety analyst David Soucie.

David, you saw that search area that Tom just pointed out to us. Does it make sense to you?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: You know, it doesn't, to be honest with you. I wish it did. But I really don't have the information to figure out why they're changing it like it is. But from the outside looking in, it just doesn't seem like it makes a lot of sense. It seems like they're following pieces of information and data that they just aren't confident in.

FEYERICK: Do you think -- now, for example, one thing that I was talking to a guest earlier about, and that is, you know, that somebody has had to run through all the coordinates. How fast the plane could have been flying at 35,000 feet, how slow it could have been at 12,000 feet, the fuel burn, all of these things to try to create at least what appears to be some sort of a radius or boundary. One would think that the area might be smaller if you look at the fastest, the slowest, the height, the speed, the wind, the altitude, all of that, no? SOUCIE: No, there's quite a few variables there. In fact, the thing that I find interesting too is that the underlying assumption through all of this is that that airplane flew straight and that it flew at the same speed the entire time. I don't think you can make that assumption. And I think that's probably -- if I was to fault anything in their math, that's kind of what i would go after. Whenever there's a solid assumption based after yesterday, when they made the statement that we don't know what altitude it was, it could have been at 12,000 feet, it could have been at 35,000 feet from the prime minister, that really made my heart sink because I thought that they had information from the radar about that.

FEYERICK: Right.

SOUCIE: I had been -- I was doubtful because they said it came from primary radar. But even the prime minister wasn't confident in the altitude of that airplane and that was the one solid assumption they'd made throughout this search.

FEYERICK: Right. And you can imagine we look at this and we investigate and we analyze it. Add the emotion of the families and the confusion is simply compounded.

David Soucie, thank you so much. We want you to stick around because we want you to answer some viewer questions in just a few minutes. And, of course, tweet me your questions @debfeyerickcnn #370qs.

And coming up, a first in the search for missing Flight 370. A nuclear submarine is on its way to the search area, ready to assist in the investigation. What that sub can do that others tools cannot. That's next.

And later, after an 8.2 earthquake in Chile, some scientists are warning that a much bigger quake could be on the way. We'll show you what they're looking for.

And could this all be connected to those earthquakes that have been -- we've been seeing that have been rattling Los Angeles. We're going to talk to an expert for you.

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