Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Flight 370 Search; Pistorius Trial

Aired April 08, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf Blitzer, thank you so much, as always.

Hi there. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Great to be with you on this Tuesday.

And let's begin with the hunt for Flight 370. Really disappointment today in this frantic search to find the source of those pings heard deep somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Search crews are still trying to relocate the sounds that they hoped would lead them to the flight's black boxes.

U.S. Navy towed pinger locator, or TPL, we've talked about this, we've explained how this works here. It is onboard Australia's Ocean Shield. It picked up two ping signal detections just over this weekend. The first one actually for more than two hours. The second for about 13 minutes. And CNN has now turned around what those clicks sounded like this weekend.

(AUDIO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That's what they heard. That's what they're listening for again. Relocating these pings, now the main focus. And today, the search zone is drastically scaled back, reduced to 30,000 square miles. Here you have 14 ships, 14 aircraft involved in today's search. They are on borrowed time, as today we keep counting, day 33 since that plane vanished. And with a 30-day more or less battery life of those black boxes, really more or less out of juice, Australia's defense minister says they are holding nothing back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID JOHNSTON, AUSTRALIAN DEFENSE MINISTER: You can be assured that we are throwing everything at this difficult, complex task in these -- at least these next several days, whilst we believe the two pingers involved are still active.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The underwater drone is collecting dust onboard the Ocean Shield and it will stay above water, here it is, not to be deployed unless they hear (INAUDIBLE) because this then has more accurate sonar to find it and hopefully find the wreckage. CNN's Will Ripley is live for us in Perth, 2:00 in the morning Will's time. Of course this is the headquarters for the search operation.

And, Will, we talk about now this narrower, this smaller search area. How are they intensifying the search? And why not toss every possible resource to find these pings?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the search area now one-third the size of what it once was, but still pretty large. We're talking 30,000 square miles. And, you know, we have two simultaneous search operations, 14 ships out on the water, 14 planes taking off from Perth. Many of them taking off from the air base where I'm standing right now. So, the two searches that are happening, there's the one above the water, the search for that debris field that has been so elusive as we are now more than a month into this. Not one piece of physical evidence from Flight 370, even though these planes have literally been out and these ships have been out scouring the surface of the ocean.

And then you talk about the search, which is getting so much attention right now, the Ocean Shield, dragging that pinger locating almost four miles of tow line, a very slow and intensive search. But as you mentioned, a very important search because if there's any chance that the black boxes are still emitting a signal, they want that pinger locator to pick it up. Angus Houston is here now. I want you to listen to what he says explaining why it's so important.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGUS HOUSTON, CHIEF SEARCH COORDINATOR: Now, until we stop the pinger search, we will not deploy the submersible. Is that clear? We will not deploy it unless we find -- unless we get another transmission, in which case we'll probably have a better idea of what's down there and we'll go down there and have a look.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIPLEY: So they need another transmission. But let's just say that we get to the point in a few more days of intensive searching where it's obviously clear that the black box batteries are no longer emitting a signal. What happens next? Well, that's when we're told they will consider deploying this submersible, the Bluefin 21 that we've told you about, the one that you said is collecting dust.

But here's the problem, Brooke. One day's work for the pinger locator will take the Bluefin a full week. So if we get to that point in the search where we have to switch and start using that technology, this is going to become a much slower, much more grueling process.

BALDWIN: Will Ripley in Perth. Thank you, Will.

And to that point, and other points, let's just broaden out the discussion and let me bring in my next two guests here, ocean search specialist Mike Williamson, live for us right now in Seattle, and you recognize this guy as well, Jeff Wise, CNN aviation analyst and author, joining me from New York.

So, gentlemen, thank you so much for being with me.

And, Mike, I just want to -- let me begin sort of on what our correspondent there in Perth was talking about, why not use the Bluefin? Here we've been using -- or they've been using the TPL. You know, this really seems like such a great lead. Why not -- if they are in the ballpark, forgive my lack of proper terminology, why not drop this Bluefin in, in the possibility that they could hear the pings?

MIKE WILLIAMSON, OCEAN SEARCH SPECIALIST: Well, currently, we only have detection of the pings on two lines of position. And we really critically need to detect those pings on a third line of positioning to really narrow down the search area. Right --

BALDWIN: What do you mean by that? Let me just stop you there. What do you mean by third line of position?

WILLIAMSON: OK. Well, basically we're trying to triangulate where the pings are coming from. And the detections are just -- the detector is not directional. It's getting a signal from something in a range of six miles. In a circle, if you will.

BALDWIN: Uh-huh.

WILLIAMSON: And it detected on another track the same pings and yet we have another circle of six mile diameter. So if we could get a different, third line of position, a direction that the ship is steaming with yet a third circle, we overlap those circles, and at the point they overlap then is the most likely location for the wreckage.

BALDWIN: I get it. I get it. The ballpark, the neighborhood is still way too big for them, even though they have this ping. So based upon triangulation in this zig-zag, like you're mowing a lawn, they're hoping to find that third line of position, drop the Bluefin in and find the wreckage. I think - I think I got this.

Jeff, let me follow-up with you though, because there's a lot of, you know, interference, I know that can impact hearing the pings. Even the search ships themselves, ocean noise, oceanographers know that. At the same time, I spent some time this morning just reading about the frequency, right, that is emitted from these pings, from these black boxes. And it sounds to me this could maybe be it because the frequency is about the same. Am I right?

JEFF WISE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, you know, I guess it all sort of depends on how you look at it. It's not the right frequency. It's not the frequency that you would expect to find. Some people have pointed out, well, there's factors that can affect the frequency that the pinger puts out. And that could explain why it's not the same. So even though it's wrong, maybe it's not so wrong that it rules it out.

BALDWIN: How -- how wrong is it?

WISE: It's off by about 10 percent. So it's not wildly, widely off. But, you know, there's different pieces of equipment that people put down in the ocean, you know, deep sea exploration equipment for oil exploration, for instance, that -- I'm not saying that's what's in this particular stretch of ocean but there's lots of things that go on under the water --

BALDWIN: Detecting whale sounds, for example? WISE: Well, and there's that. So I'm talking about there's man-made things that -- so this frequency that the pinger was designed to broadcast at was designed because it's relatively quiet in the ocean. I mean the ocean is a very noisy place. There's all kinds of sea creatures and natural processes that are causing noises of every kind of frequency. This particular frequency is relatively quiet, that's why they chose it, so that they -- so that if you have a pinger there that's putting out energy at this frequency, you can hope to find it and it won't be swamped by natural sounds.

BALDWIN: OK.

WISE: But there is - there are still other things. There have been false positives in the past, as you noted. In fact, during the press conference last night, one of the things that Angus Houston pointed out was that the false positives that they have experienced already over the last few days have been traced in part to the noise of the ships themselves.

BALDWIN: The search ships themselves and that's -

WISE: right.

BALDWIN: That's affecting this?

Mike, what about - I was just reading about sound and how, for example, in air, sound travels more or less in a straight line. But then sound in water, with temperature, with pressure, with salinity, with, you know, levels of saltwater, it can bend, sort of making this even more difficult to trace.

WILLIAMSON: That's correct. Bend quite dramatically. The effect of temperature, pressure will have an effect on the velocity of sound as it travels through the water. And this will cause the ray path, the direction in which the sound is traveling, to actually bend sort of like looking at a pencil in a half a glass of water. The same sort of refraction that occurs there. So it can be very difficult to localize.

BALDWIN: If they localize it, if based upon this third line of positioning that they hope to attain in triangulation, they nail it, this is, you know, the ping from the black box, then, Jeff, what happens next? Do they then put the Bluefin, this vehicle underwater, to have a more accurate listening system? Is that how that works?

WISE: Right. So then we'll be sort of on track with what we did with Air France 447 where, OK, we've located the wreckage, you send down the autonomous underwater vehicle to go down and scan with sonar to essentially paint a picture with sound. The vehicle would return to the surface, upload the information to the ship. They would most likely swap out the side-scan sonar for an optical camera, send it back down, take pictures, get a real complete understanding of where the different parts of the aircraft are.

And then you'd send down another piece of equipment, a remotely operated vehicle. This is a submarine that's -- you know, you do it by remote control. It goes down. It has an arm, or arms, and it grabs the boxes, and they get returned to the surface. They're kept in saltwater so that they don't corrode. And they're returned - I -- most likely for analysis by the NTSB here in the United States.

Then you wait. Because then it's -- the NTSB is very tight-lipped about what they're doing until they're really to release their final report, which they, in fact, will probably have to do through the Malaysians, since they're not issuing the reports themselves.

So even if everything works perfectly, even if all our hopes and dreams are realized, it's still going to be a while before we find answers.

BALDWIN: Yes. A lot of ifs in this story. Jeff Wise, Mike Williamson, thank you both so much for your expertise here.

Coming up, stunning moments in the Oscar Pistorius murder trial today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OSCAR PISTORIUS, DEFENDANT: I was calling out for the Lord to help me. I was crying out for Reeva. I was screaming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The blade runner breaks down on the stand sobbing, describing the moment he shot his girlfriend. You will hear that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back to CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

You know, today was an incredibly emotional day of testimony in the Oscar Pistorius murder trial. Today, on the stand, the Paralympic sprinter had to explain what happened the night he shot and killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. So for three and a half hours, Pistorius sat there vividly reliving the horrors of that deadly night inside his Pretoria, South Africa, apartment. And there were several long pauses as he gave his account of the events. Many members of the family here in the courtroom -- this is Reeva Steenkamp's family -- listening to it all. The mother here burying her face in her hand. And toward the end of his testimony, Pistorius himself broke down, sobbing helplessly. For a second day in a row, he could not continue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PISTORIUS: It was at this point that I heard a window open in the bathroom. It sounded like a -- the window sliding open. And then I could hear the window hit the frame, as if it had slipped to a point where it couldn't slide anymore. It was at that point that I was just overcome with fear and I started screaming and shouting for the burglar or the intruders to get out of my house. I shouted for Reeva to get on the floor.

That's the moment that everything changed. I thought that there was a burglar that was gaining entry into my home. The first thing that ran through my mind was that I needed to arm myself, that I needed to protect Reeva and I, and that I needed to get my gun.

Where I entered the passage, the closet is to the bathroom, it was at that point that I was just overcome with fear and I started screaming and shouting for the burglar or the intruders to get out of my house. Then I heard a door slam, which could have only been the toilet door. So I started screaming again for Reeva to phone the police.

And then I heard a noise from inside the toilet. What I perceived to be somebody coming out of the toilet. Before I knew it, I had fired four shots at the door. My ears were ringing. I couldn't hear anything. So I shouted - I kept on shouting for Reeva to phone the police. I retreated back to a point where I got to the corner of the bed. And I (INAUDIBLE) on the bed and I tried to lift myself up. I was talking to Reeva. And there was nobody -- no one responded to me. I flung the door open. I threw it open. And I sat over Reeva and I cried. And I don't know how long -- I don't know how long I was there for. She wasn't breathing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're take an adjournment. Court will adjourn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The words of Oscar Pistorius, day two, taking the stand. We're going to stay on this. A quick break. But, next, I'll bring in our CNN legal panel to talk about the testimony, what they made of this, what are the biggest holes in his story and what about his response to some angry, intimate text messages? How might his emotional state on the stand play with the judge? Remember, it's the judge who decides his fate here. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just before the break we heard some of today's just gut- wrenching testimony from South African Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius. And he sat there testifying, explaining his version of events the night he shot and killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. And he became so emotional, he started wailing and his testimony was cut short. The judge adjourned.

So, is Pistorius sincere? Is he telling the truth? Let me bring in my CNN legal panel, former federal prosecutor Sunny Hostin and criminal defense attorney Danny Cevallos.

So, welcome to both of you.

And, Sunny, I think just because we played so much of the testimony and the emotion, let me just begin with you, because I just - out of the gate, what do you make of -- we know he has vomited, he's sobbed, his sister has sobbed in court sort of along with him here. We have the judge a second day in a row sort of calling it quits. What did you make of his emotion and also do you think that the judge is finding him sincere?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, you know, I do think that the judge is finding his emotional state sincere, that he is clearly distressed while he's on the witness stand, because she does seem to be treating him very tenderly. She asked for the adjournment today. Yesterday she indicated that she felt that he was really exhausted and needed a break. And so you can see that this judge is definitely treating him well.

I've got to tell you, Brooke, I've had a lot of defendants and witnesses cry on the witness stand and the judge has said, OK, I'll give you a 15-minute break, let's move on.

BALDWIN: Right.

HOSTIN: So this judge has not done that. But I think his showing of emotion cuts both ways because he is so emotional that rather than appear to be credible, perhaps he is now showing the judge that he's this volatile character, you know, possibly I think capable of just flipping off and losing his mind and committing murder. I mean he's such an emotional person -

BALDWIN: That's an interesting point.

HOSTIN: That I think he looks unstable.

BALDWIN: OK. That's an interesting point to see it that way.

Danny, juxtaposing his emotion with this notion some of his testimony. We know here he was that night firing four gunshots through a door without knowing who was on the other side. How reasonable is that?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Oscar Pistorius hopes the answer to that question is, a reasonable South African would fire those shots into the door. You see, living where we live, we don't have the same context of how high crime an area South Africa is. You know who does though is the judge hearing the case. So, you hear a lot of his testimony building the case, developing his experiences with crime, Pistorius' personal experiences with crime. But he has to demonstrate them and tell them in a way that the judge can relate to him because the judge lives in the same country. And if she can relate to that fear, that fear that the possibility that an intruder could get into your bathroom on any given night, which many of us here have the luxury of not having that fear, then that may go a long way. It may begin to explain what to many other people in the world seems galacticly stupid.

BALDWIN: Testifying yesterday, you know, they -- he was a little boy growing up. His father wasn't around quite as much. Mom had this fear of an intruder as well. Kept a gun inside her pillow. So perhaps this is part of that fear as he's now grown up.

But, Sunny, what about -- I go back to the fact, here you have this man who clearly didn't think -- we just don't know what he was thinking, not to check to see if his girlfriend is in the bed next to him. I mean how do you explain that? Why not have your first gut instinct be, let me try to protect her before I see what's happening in the bathroom?

HOSTIN: And I think that is the problem that Oscar Pistorius has. I mean he basically indicated that when he woke up, Reeva was also awake and said, you know, sweetie, are you having trouble sleeping? I'm paraphrasing. But he then gets up and hears this noise. And rather than go back to the bed and check on her -

BALDWIN: Right.

HOSTIN: He goes back to the bed and gets a gun, and then starts shooting. So that piece doesn't make sense because I think even though this judge is a judge, so trained in the law, she still has her common sense with her, right? And I think she may think, but are those the actions of a reasonable person? Most people who are with their partner in bed and hear something go thump in the night, the first thing you do is check the one that you want to protect. So that, I think, is a really crucial piece. And I'm not sure how the defense really gets over that.

BALDWIN: How would, Danny, how would one defend that action?

CEVALLOS: Well, those are two major problems that he has. First of all, the reasonableness of not checking for a person next to you in bed. And secondly, firing into that closed door. But I have to add, earlier, as Ashleigh Banfield pointed out an interesting fact that the other big question is, why didn't Reeva Steenkamp shout out after Oscar started shouting? And he - the defense may begin to explain this by painting a picture of her panicking when she hears this screaming and maybe imagining Pistorius is confronting a burglar somewhere else in the house. It's a fascinating explanation for why she may not have cried out after Pistorius started shouting.

BALDWIN: It's a thought. We just don't know. But we continue on, watching for the testimony as it will go into tomorrow. Danny Cevallos and Sunny Hostin, thank you both very much here.

We will take you now back to our special coverage of Flight 370 as investigators are listening for those elusive, thus far, pings in the hunt that is definitely not the only thing that's making noise under the waves. Rosa Flores joins me next. She has listened for a pinging signal with underwater microphones and heard much, much more. We'll talk to her about that.

Also, with the batteries dying on these black boxes here, what authorities are counting on now to lead them to finding this missing plane. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)