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School Safety Protocols; Possible Signal Detected; Flight 370's Drop; Mystery of Flight 370; 40,000 Russian Troops at Ukrainian Border

Aired April 10, 2014 - 09:30   ET

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

KEN TRUMP, NATIONAL SCHOOL SAFETY AND SECURITY SERVICES: We have some schools across the country where they're telling kids to bring a can of soup and put it in their desk drawer at elementary school to throw at the gunman. That's not the type of drills we have.

But we also shouldn't be doing lockdowns only at 9:12 in the morning when it's convenient for the adults, instead of doing them during lunch, between class changes and as students arrive, because that's the time of the day where we're very likely to have an incident as we've seen in other cases and where we're least prepared.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, apparently, Ken, there were three security-type officers inside the school at the time this went down. And, still, this kid managed to, what, allegedly stab 21 people. So is the real solution here to put metal detectors in every school?

TRUMP: No, Carol, the answer is not. Metal detectors give a quick fix for our emotional security needs. But when you think about it, you'd have to run metal detectors 24 hours, seven days a week, because I could come in -- if you're running metal detectors just during the school day, I could come in at 6:00 at night while there are basketball practices, drama clubs, other events, adult education, put something in a locker and then come in the next morning clean when you scan me on a metal detector or have somebody pass something through the window, go to the locker and put it -- what I got the night before and still have the incident. You'd have to run it 24-7 and we know that we still have weapons even in sterile areas in the TSA, in the airports and other government offices.

So I think we need to focus on the people. The number one way we find out about weapons and plots in school is from kids who come forward and tell an adult they trust. And we're already seeing, in this case, some information about possible threats online and comments the night before.

We need to make sure that we have the mechanisms in place to encourage people to come forward and report. And with social media today, it's even more challenging because of the trajectory of messaging and how quickly things go and how hard it is to cycle that back to get it.

COSTELLO: Right. And you're right about the threats. The students say that this suspect apparently threatened an upper classman. Police did tell CNN yesterday they were investigating that. So, we'll see how it turns out. Ken Trump, thanks so much for being with me this morning.

TRUMP: Thanks again, Carol.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, investigators have heard several pings that are consistent with that of a plane's black box. Actually, specifically, they've heard five separate sounds coming out of the ocean. But even as the search area for Flight 370 narrows, the immense ocean depth and the tricky ocean floor could pose a totally new problem. Brian Todd has that part of the story from Washington.

Good morning.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

We're going to talk about those intimidating ocean depths that search teams may have to deal with if they find clearer signals of the plane. And we'll tell you about the specific device which may have picked up the latest signal from the ocean floor. That's just ahead.

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COSTELLO: Back to our special coverage in the search for Malaysia Flight 370. There are a number of new developments unfolding right now. Sources tell us that at one point when the plane fell from radar, it must have plunged in altitude to between 4,000 and 5,000 feet. Also, investigators now say that it was the flight's captain who radioed in that last messaged to air traffic controllers.

And this morning, most importantly, search crews discover a possible new signal on the flight's black boxes, which could explain exactly what happened. That brings the number of sounds coming from the ocean they've detected to five. These new signals were detected by sonar buoys that have been deployed. But even if the pings are from the black box of Flight 370, searchers still have to deal with the massively deep ocean and sometimes unstable ocean floor. CNN's Brian Todd live in Washington with that part of the story.

Good morning.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Those ocean (INAUDIBLE) very intimidating. For some perspective, you know the Titanic was down about 12,500 feet below the surface of the ocean and it took search teams more than seven decades to find that. These signals coming from the ocean floor, if they are actually on the floor of the ocean in that area, are about 14,700 feet down. That's almost three miles down.

And as you mentioned, the ocean floor itself is complicated in that area. It's not charted all that well. What we do know from oceanographers is that there is a flat plain at the bottom of the - of that - of the ocean in that area surrounded by mountain ridges. And there is also the possibility, because of the mountain ranges down there, that signals, audio signals, could bounce off certain mountains or hills down there and maybe throw up some confusing signals as far as the possible location of the plane. That's another thing that they're going to have to deal with if they get down that far and they find something tangible.

Also, the silt in that area is considerable and it is apparently very kind of -- it's porous and it moves around a lot. So if the plane did travel down there and hit the bottom, it could be buried in some silt. And that, again, will complicate this search, Carol, if they find anything out there.

COSTELLO: I understand. Brian Todd, reporting live, thanks so much.

I want to bring in Mary Schiavo now. She's a CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general of the Department of Transportation.

Welcome, Mary.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Thank you. Good to be with you.

COSTELLO: Oh, good to have you here.

So now they've had the five separate instances where they've picked up sound from underneath the water. That has to be good.

SCHIAVO: It is. It is very good because then they can narrow the search area when they put those unmanned subs down with the side-scan sonar because, you know, even with the pings, it will take many days, if they're lucky, and many weeks, if they're not, to locate it under the ocean. So the more pings, the better, because you can just zero in on where you want to be.

COSTELLO: At what point will they decide to send those drone submarines under water to start looking for these black boxes?

SCHIAVO: When the pings stop. As long as they can keep zeroing in - I mean they -- every day we learn how they've zeroed in the search area. And, you know, for example, even in cases where they've had even better search information, it has taken many days or many weeks to still locate the black boxes on the ocean floor. There was another crash in the Indian Ocean about 20 years ago and they located those with the side scan sonar in just a couple days. so that's what they'd be hoping for here. So when the pings are all done, they'll send them down.

COSTELLO: OK. Let's talk about some of the other developments today. Malaysian investigators say it was indeed the captain who uttered those last words to air traffic controllers. Does that mean anything?

SCHIAVO: Sure. Sure. It's very important because we also have to put it in perspective. We need to know who uttered all of the other words in the flight to air traffic control. And usually what happens is the pilot not flying. You know, often it's the copilot, but not always. The pilot not flying handles the radio communication.

So we know because of this latest information, we know the pilot was alive and well. He didn't report any mayday or hijack code or anything like that. We can maybe assume that the copilot was flying, but not necessarily. And, you know, at that point, whatever was going to occur hadn't occurred yet. But the - you know, the indications are that at least at that point things seemed normal.

COSTELLO: Well, the plane's altitude also seemed all over the place. Investigators now say at one point the plane dropped to below 5,000 feet. What does that tell you?

SCHIAVO: Well, you can read a lot of things into that or not. Like everything in this investigation, if you're flying, you know, a plane at 35,000 feet, where this flight was, and you had a depressurization, you would need to get down below 10,000 feet and in a hurry. Also, if you had lost your communications and your transponder wasn't working, you have to get out of the commercial flight traffic lanes, and that's above 18,000 feet, for a couple reasons.

One, if you don't have any communications, you can't talk to other flights or air traffic control, and, two, that would mean, if you had no transponder, that would mean that your collision avoidance doesn't work. And that's a very dangerous situation. So that's another reason you'd need to get down and out of air traffic lanes and 4,000 to 5,000 feet is usually not low enough to avoid radar, certainly not commercial radar.

COSTELLO: Bottom line, we need those black boxes to tell us exactly what went down, what happened.

SCHIAVO: We need them.

COSTELLO: That's right. Mary Schiavo, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, we'll check in with Richard Quest to find out what he's found out about that possible new signal and other revelations in the search for Flight 370.

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COSTELLO: We've been talking this morning about this new revelation that the plane plunged in altitude to between 4,000 and 5,000 feet. The question is why. There's also a new report about the plane's flight path. Richard Quest is in New York with more on this.

Good morning, Richard.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol.

COSTELLO: So tell us about the new flight path and why the plane might have dipped to 5,000 feet.

QUEST: All right. Well, we've always known that there were rumors of altitude differences. You'll recall right at the beginning there was one report that it went up to 45,000 and then down to 23,000. Then we've had it at 12,000. We've actually had it at 4,000 feet before. The issue is whether or not it was flying that low level to avoid other air traffic.

If you look at the map and you see how the plane was flying, after the turn in the middle of the South China Sea, it was effectively double- backing on itself. And, therefore, there was always the risk of it meeting on coming traffic. So the theory goes the pilot went down to a level which he knew would take him out of -- or whoever was flying, I must correct myself -- it would take him down to a level out of the way of any other traffic that would be flying in either direction.

At 4,000 feet, that far away from any airport, he would have known that he would have been safely out of danger of other traffic.

COSTELLO: So let me ask you this. So we know the plane made that strange left turn. We know investigators think that the plane somehow skirted around Indonesia, perhaps to evade radar. Now we're hearing that the plane might have dipped to 5,000 feet for the reasons you just explained. Are investigators fairly sure that this is now a deliberate criminal act?

QUEST: You put one and one and one together, and you have to add it up. You used the word "deliberate". I'm not parrying with you here, Carol but what you may be asking me is do they now believe it's criminal and nefarious. They've always said -- they've always said it's deliberate. For weeks the investigators very much -- since the first time they told us of the left-hand turn, they said it was evidence of the plane under the control of someone and that these actions were deliberate.

Now, the issue has been whether deliberate equates to criminal, nefarious. We know there's a criminal investigation under way. But what nobody has done officially on the record, so to speak, has basically said we are now saying this was now done with criminal intent. So that is where the unknown, if you like, still rests. Was this done with criminal intent? And so far nobody has specifically said that's the case.

COSTELLO: Richard Quest reporting live from New York, thanks as usual.

QUEST: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in NEWSROOM, 40,000 troops waiting at the border of Ukraine. What exactly are they doing there and what will the United States do now?

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COSTELLO: This morning, the secretary-general of NATO says there are 40,000 Russian troops at Ukrainian's border ready for combat. In other words, those troops are not conducting training there. In the meantime, Ukraine's acting president says those protesters who remain holed up inside two government buildings will not be prosecuted if they decide to surrender. But those pro-Russian protesters, so to speak, show no sign of leaving any time soon.

Joining me now, former undersecretary of state, Nicholas Burns, and Michael Hirsch, chief correspondent for "The National Journal" -- good morning, gentlemen.

NICHOLAS BURNS, FORMER UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Thank you so much for joining me.

I want to start with the Russian troops. Michael, the fear here is these troops are ready to invade a different part of Ukraine, at any time. Some say there's plenty of evidence of that. It's just a question of when.

MICHAEL HIRSCH, "NATIONAL JOURNAL": Well, that has been the fear for the past several weeks. But it appears that what Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has been up to, as Secretary of State John Kerry alleged just the other day, is more covert-type activities suited to Putin's, you know, personal history as a KGB officer.

It looks like they have been stirring up separatists, perhaps protesters for hire to occupy, inciting them to occupy these buildings. And right now that's mainly what is going on. Are negotiations between the Ukrainian government and these protesters occupying the buildings in the cities of Donetsk and Lugansk -- Lugansk, I'm sorry.

COSTELLO: So Nicholas, when --

HIRSCH: Lugansk, I'm sorry.

COSTELLO: That's OK.

Nicholas, when Ukrainian officials say hey, Russian protesters, we won't prosecute if you leave these government buildings and leave us alone, is that going to work?

BURNS: Well, there are indications this morning, Carol, that it may work because there are new polls out showing that very small percentage of the residents of eastern Ukraine want to see this kind of violence, want to see their municipal buildings being taken over by armed gangs, and they don't want to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian federation.

So it may be that the people of Ukraine are going to play a factor here. And it looks like the government of Ukraine has a reasonably good chance of convincing some of these armed gangs to leave particularly the municipal -- the federal building, excuse me, in Donetsk.

This is obviously an attempt, as Michael has said, by the Russian government to intimidate the Ukrainians to weaken the government in Kiev. And the Russian government is clearly encouraging these demonstrations and the armed violence. And it's right out of Putin's playbook in Crimea.

COSTELLO: And Michael, Russia seems to have another tactic up its sleeve. It's withholding natural resources that it ships into Ukraine. It's even jacked up the price of natural gas, what -- 44 percent or more?

HIRSCH: Yes, I mean this has been Putin's main instrument of power abroad -- well, for most of the last decade. He always conceived of post-Soviet Russia as an oil and natural gas superpower. It was the way to regain the prestige of the former Soviet Union which he has quite openly lamented the passing of.

And so that's no surprise. I mean this is a sort of economic leverage in addition to economic inducements which he gave to former Ukrainian president -- the former Ukrainian president who fled several weeks ago.

So the big question now is whether the Russian government, under Putin, will be willing to negotiate some kind of a solution and whether the West will agree to, you know, perhaps some form of Russian proposal that involves granting -- greater autonomy, that is, to some of these eastern Ukrainian provinces.

COSTELLO: So Nicholas, will the West agree to that? What will it do?

BURNS: Well, I don't think that the United States or Europe is going to agree to the Russian proposal for a new federal Ukraine because what it would do is it would hollow out the central government in Kiev and give all power to the regions.

But I do think it's possible, Carol, that you may see negotiations over the next week or two between the Ukrainian and Russian governments and the European Union and NATO and the U.S. at the same table. And I think that's just to try to get those two talking -- Ukraine and Russia. But the new Ukrainian government and the U.S. are not going to agree with Putin's proposal.

What the U.S. can do is threaten major economic sanctions, should Putin put troops into eastern Ukraine. Hopefully that will be a deterrent. And we ought to be reinforcing our NATO positions just to show Putin that he does not have the right to threaten the Baltic States, or Romania, or Poland, the NATO members in Eastern Europe.

COSTELLO: Nicholas Burns, Michael Hirsch, thanks to you both.

BURNS: Thank you, Carol.

HIRSCH: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

We're back in a minute.

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