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"Most Promising Lead" Yet In Plane Search; Signals Detected Almost 3 Miles Deep; U.S. Pinger Locator Detects Two Signals; U.S. Equipment Playing Key Roles In Search; Pistorius Takes Stand In His Murder Trial
Aired April 07, 2014 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: NEWSROOM starts now. Breaking overnight, new hope.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The new developments over the last few hours has been the most promising lead we have had.
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COSTELLO: Two new pings.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We detected about 54 minutes or so of this pinging.
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COSTELLO: Consistent with the plane's black box.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It will sweep over that area, take a series of still pictures, transmit it to the vessel on the surface so that they kind of see what they are looking at.
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COSTELLO: Are we closer to finding missing Flight 370?
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There will be a positive development in the next few days if not hours.
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COSTELLO: New information coming in every hour and breaking right now --
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would like to take this opportunity to apologize.
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COSTELLO: Blade Runner Oscar Pistorius is taking the stand.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can promise that when she went to bed that night, she felt love.
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COSTELLO: A special edition of NEWSROOM starts now.
Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We begin with breaking news in the search for that missing airlines Flight 370. It's being called the most promising lead yet. An Australian naval ship equipped with a high tech U.S. pinger locater has detected two separate signals in the Southern Indian Ocean.
Officials say the sounds matched the frequency of the plane's beacon. More than 350 nautical miles away. Search teams are also investigating pulses picked up by a Chinese search crew. All this happening at a critical time in the investigation. The batteries on the plane's black boxes could have just hours until they run out.
CNN's Will Ripley is in Perth, Australia to tell us more. Hi, Will.
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. You know, it's important to note, there were really two searches happening simultaneously right now. There's the search for debris that continues taking off every day from the air base where I'm standing and then 1,000 miles from here, there's the search under water.
And that's what's happening right now with the "Ocean Shield." They are listening under water with that listening device, trying to relocate those signals that they found twice over the weekend before the black box batteries run out.
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RIPLEY (voice-over): If this really is the missing plane and that's still a big if, how could you even begin to describe such a discovery?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It certainly would be a miracle if this does turn out to be the aircraft location.
RIPLEY: Miracle, a strong word with an even stronger warning from U.S. Navy Captain Mark Matthews.
COMMANDER MARK MATTHEWS, U.S. NAVY: I caution not to be overly optimistic here. We have got some work to do before we can say that we have a true contact here.
RIPLEY: Matthew's team is on the "Ocean Shield" using a towed pinger locator or TPL, listening for pings from MH-370's black boxes. Over the weekend, they heard two promising signals in the Southern Indian Ocean, one of them held for more than two hours.
MATTHEWS: What I would like to do before I absolutely say with certainty that it is the aircraft, is one reacquire the signal, two deploy the autonomous underwater vehicle with the side scan sonar to map the debris field, and three, switch out that sonar with the camera unit and take photographs of what would be the wreckage.
RIPLEY: Slow and tedious work, nearly 15,000 feet, almost 3 miles down. The extreme depth pushing the limits of the underwater drone, the Blue Fin 21 that would do a visual search for wreckage.
MATTHEWS: But certainly, you know, we're jumping to conclusions here, we need to definitely reacquire the signal to confirm that it is the aircraft.
RIPLEY: Their biggest obstacle, time. The black box batteries are rated for 30 days a deadline that's already passed.
MATTHEWS: Cautious, measured optimism, right? We certainly want to reacquire it before we say yes, we have done something good here.
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MATTHEWS: Caution really is the keyword here, Carol, because you think about these families and all of the false hope that they have had over the past few weeks, only to have those hopes dashed. So I think the real tone that officials here are trying to take is that they want to investigate this to the fullest. But they also don't want to jump to any conclusions, they say we owe it to the families of those 239 people.
COSTELLO: Will Ripley, reporting live from Australia. Thanks so much. Want to talk more about those new signals heard in the Indian Ocean now.
CNN aviation analyst, Rob McCallum, is an ocean search specialist and Paul Ginsberg is an audio expert and the president of Pro Audio Labs. Welcome, Gentlemen. Thank you for being here. Rob, this is a huge search area, so if indeed, those sounds are coming from one of those black boxes, would you categorize this as one of the luckiest finds ever?
ROB MCCALLUM, OCEAN SEARCH SPECIALIST: Well, you know, I don't believe in the word luck. I mean, to me luck is equal paths, preparation, and opportunity. This is certainly one of the biggest breaks that any search leader has ever had and it's a reflection on the careful work that's being done by the people in the back room who are retro navigating their way through the radar signals through the handshakes to get us to this point on the ocean.
COSTELLO: Paul, the U.S. Navy Commander William Marks says the signals were strong as the pinger locator got close to it and then faded away as, you know, the ship moved away from the sound. Why is that important?
PAUL GINSBERG, AUDIO EXPERT: Well, it gives an idea of what the location is. And what they will do now is to map the relative signal strength at different points in the ocean and draw a diagram to get the most probable exact location.
COSTELLO: So, I guess that's why, Rob, they're not sending down that drone submarine right now, we thought it would go down today but it didn't.
MCCALLUM: What they want to do at the moment is keep towing the locator across that site and every time they do that, it takes around seven hours to run across the area and then turn around at the end and come back again. They're frying to triangulate. They're trying to take different bearings, different measurements to pin point exactly where the source of that sound might be.
COSTELLO: Paul, what if they are unable to do that? What happens then?
GINSBERG: Well, I think they will be able to find it and in fact, it was interesting because early this morning just after midnight, we had that press conference and then CNN was able to contact a commander on the ship and he said that they had received signals from the pinger for two hours, 20 minutes.
And then after they had gone further, made a turn and come back, they located more pinger activity for about 13 minutes, but I asked the gentleman, was the signal identical? And he said no, it was slightly different, which means that hopefully, both of the pingers, one from the cockpit voice recorder and one from the data reporter are both in the same area, emitting signals that happened to be very slightly different but identifiable.
COSTELLO: Interesting. So Rob, a question for you. If these sounds are indeed coming from those black boxes, why haven't we found any debris in the general vicinity?
MCCALLUM: It's a good question and I can only think of two reasons. One is that the aircraft, you know, went into the water relatively intact. You know, as a result of a belly landing or, you know, a very high speed straight down dive. But that's the first reason. It just simply didn't break up. And the second is that we didn't get to this area until ten days or so after the start of the search and it may have all drifted away, but it's a good question.
COSTELLO: And Paul, can you get into that little more for us? Because you think they would have found something. Even if the plane did that belly landing, as the plane sunk under the ocean, it would have broken apart, wouldn't it?
GINSBERG: Well, I would think so. I mean, on impact, I don't know that a 777 can land going at the speed it was, which I believe was 310 knots without breaking apart. So you would expect to see something floating.
COSTELLO: OK, but you're both -- like how hopeful? I don't want to give false hope to our viewers because we have heard it before that they were cautiously optimistic and then nothing came of anything. So Rob, I'll start with you. How hopeful should we be?
MCCALLUM: You should be fairly hopeful. You need absolute proof, you need to sight wreckage either on the surface or on the sea floor. But they have been through the area twice, they're using the very best gear, the very best people. They wouldn't make an announcement unless they were on to something good.
COSTELLO: Paul, do you agree?
GINSBERG: Yes, indeed. I think they have been very, very cautious and they have been very good about not going overboard when it comes to making statements to give false hope. So I believe we have something real here. And it will solidify, of course, one piece of baggage would really, really make the case.
COSTELLO: Something. Robert McCallum, Paul Ginsberg, many thanks to both of you.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, vanished without a trace, now the head of an international airlines group says it's time to set a global standard for tracking planes. He'll join me next.
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COSTELLO: The families of those on board Flight 370 are struggling with the notion that those pings may be coming from the plane's black boxes, many of those families still holding out hope until they get tangible proof. Sarah Bajc, the partner of American passenger, Philip Wood, said in a statement, quote, "A few bits and pieces of wreckage or a pinging that isn't verified could just be planted evidence meant to distract us." Pauline Chiou has more for you from Beijing.
PAULINE CHIOU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, the families are generally cautious about the newest reports of a possible pinging sounds. They want more information, but here is the dilemma, they want concrete information, but if they get confirmation that those sounds are from the black box, it would be the devastating final word on what happened.
This woman says, my direct response is no matter if it's two hours of pulses or the frequency matches the black box signal, it's only a lead, a lead that brings us closer to the truth or where the plane is, but we don't know if this is true or false.
We also spoke with Steve Wang over the weekend. His mother is a passenger on the plane. He said he is coming to grips with the reality of what may have happened.
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STEVE WANG, SON OF PASSENGER: It may be time in the next couple of days or the next couple of years, we will find the ending, but there will be a time that it will end. To me, I don't want that it is MH370, but if it is the facts I have to face it.
(END VIDEO CLIP) CHIOU: Tonight the families will pause for the one-month mark of the disappearance of MH-370. They will start a candlelight vigil at 12:41 a.m., the moment that the plane took off from Kuala Lumpur and the vigil will last until 8:19 a.m., the moment of that last partial ping that was detected by that satellite -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Pauline Chiou reporting for us this morning. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Oscar Pistorius takes the stand in his murder trial and cries as he remembers the night he shot his girlfriend.
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OSCAR PISTORIUS, FATALLY SHOT GIRLFRIEND: I was simply trying to protect Reeva. I can promise you that when she went to bed that night she felt love.
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COSTELLO: You'll hear more testimony when we come back.
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COSTELLO: We have been telling you about the pings detected by the pinger locators on board the "Ocean Shield" out there in the Indian Ocean. Investigators say they're confident that these pings may indeed be coming from the black boxes from Flight 370. If they determined that these pings are real and they narrow down the focus area, they will send down these submarine drones. Rosa Flores has more for you.
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ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This could be the key to solving the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of the hydraulics are running.
FLORES: An underwater piece of equipment that works in the deep sea, called a remotely operating vehicle, ROV, for short. Helix Canyon Offshore gave CNN an exclusive look at the ROV Triton XLS.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you getting a signal on the ROV beacons as well?
FLORES: The multimillion dollar machine is tethered to a vessel, dropped into the water by a cable and slowly, remotely lowered to the sea floor by pilots in a control room located inside the ship. The ROV is equipped with cameras.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A pilot monitor and a co-pilot monitor.
FLORES: Meaning an ROV like this one could lay the first eyes on the wreckage of Flight 370.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It could tell you how it came apart. It could certainly tell you if certain parts were burned. It can tell you a very complete story.
FLORES: Metal arms and jaws are controlled by a joystick.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't want to close the jaws.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The black box is not a problem at all for an ROV to put it in a basket and recover it back to the vessel.
FLORES: But before the data recorders are recovered, the wreckage must be located, a task as daunting as the Indian Ocean is deep. Rosa Flores, CNN, New York.
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COSTELLO: We'll be right back.
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COSTELLO: This morning off the coast of Australia, search crews are racing to track down the most promising lead yet in the sunny for that missing air liner. The Australian navy ship "Ocean Shield" has picked up signals from what could be the dying batteries of the plane's flight recorders, the so-called black boxes. An American ingenuity is playing a key role in today's refined search.
CNN's Brian Todd joins us for a closer look at what the pinger locater can and cannot do. Good morning, Brian.
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. The pinger locater is an impressive piece of equipment. We got access to the manufacturer about a couple of weeks ago. This is Phoenix International, a company in Largo, Maryland, which manufactured the towed pinger locater as well as well as the autonomous underwater vehicle, the AUV, called the Blue Fin 21.
There is a picture of that device. It looks like a torpedo. But the pinger locator looks like a short try angular device with a fin on top. That's the piece of equipment that may have detected the black box signals. The pinger locator has some sophisticated capability. It can go to 20,000 feet below the surface of the sea according to the manufacturer.
It can detect the signal up to two miles away. It does have some limitations, bad weather could affect it in an adverse way. The underwater obstacles could affect it in an adverse way. So it could have some capabilities that are impressive and it may have some drawbacks as well. But it could have made a major discovery in this case.
COSTELLO: How dependable is this device, Brian?
TODD: It's very dependable. They say it's very consistent and through the years, it has had some success. In the last 18 years, it's been used four times in major commercial crashes in water, and in three of those times, it was successful in finding the pinger including the Egypt Air crash in 1999. The only time it failed according to the manufacturer was in 2009 it passed over the box of the Air France plane that crashed in the Atlantic, Air France 447, and it did not detect the signals from the black box. But the manufacturer says that's because the pinger became dislocated from the black box. It came off the black box and may have been damaged. So they say that the success of the pinger locator speaks for itself -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Brian Todd, reporting live this morning, thank you.
We'll get back to our coverage of that missing flight in just a minute, but first to another big story we're following today. A dramatic day in court as Olympic runner, Oscar Pistorius, takes the stand. For the first time, we are hearing from the disgraced track star accused of murdering his Reeva Steenkamp. Pistorius has consistently said her death was a tragic accident. He thought it was a burglar in the bathroom. This morning, he fought back tears as he apologized to Steenkamp's family.
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OSCAR PISTORIUS: I would like to apologize there hasn't been a moment since this tragedy happened that I haven't thought about your family. I wake up every morning and you're the first people I think of, the first people I pray for. I can't imagine the pain and the sorrow and the grief I have caused you and your family. I was simply trying to protect Reeva. I can promise you when she went to bed that night, she felt loved.
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COSTELLO: Let's bring in CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, Sunny Hostin, and criminal defense attorney, Matthew Galluzzo. Welcome to both of you. Matthew, I want to start with you. Oscar Pistorius started with that emotional statement. He spoke directly to the family, turning his back on the judge even. Was that effective?
MATTHEW GALLUZZO, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I think it was necessary and it was effective. He has to conclusively prove and show to everyone that he really was not trying to kill his girlfriend that night obviously. So you know, demonstrating that he has this genuine remorse and that he has this genuinely heartbroken feelings about what happened.
It's absolutely critical for him. I mean, we would have been very strange if he hadn't cried, if he hadn't been remorseful. But you know, we'll see how he does under cross examination. I think it's going to be much more insightful as to his guilt or innocence as to how we answers the questions from the prosecutor and how he does on his direct examination.
COSTELLO: Sunny, he's been emotional in court the whole way through. He went on with his emotional testimony by telling the courtroom and the judge that he had trouble sleeping, that he had nightmares following Steenkamp's death. Listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PISTORIUS: I have terrible nightmares, but I got things that happened that night, where I wake up and I smell blood and I wake up to being terrified. If I hear a noise, I wake up in a complete state of terror, to a point that I'd rather not sleep then fall asleep and wake up like that.
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COSTELLO: And Sunny, he went on to -- he went on for about 45 minutes according to Robyn Curnow detailing how when he was a boy, he was very afraid that -- of crime.
