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Flight 370 Dip; New Ping Analyzed; Pennsylvania Stabbing

Aired April 10, 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: Hi, there. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for being with me here on this Thursday.

Breaking news on the mystery of Flight 370. Here we are now day 35 and this story is changing. We now have explosive new claims (ph) from a senior Malaysian government official and a source involved in this investigation. So here is what the sources are telling CNN. That after the plane took that mysterious hairpin turn to the left - remember it veered off course, watch the red line, and here comes the left turn -- it then disappeared from radar, flying about 120 nautical miles off the grid. And, according to data, the only way it could have avoided detection like this is if it made a rapid decent in altitude to somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 or up to 5,000 feet.

But as for whether this was a deliberate act to avoid radar detection, we still don't know. And now a month after this plane has just vanished, Malaysia is just now confirming that its air force did send aircraft out to search for Flight 370 shortly after it was reported missing. And our sources say investigators are now confident that the pilot, not the co-pilot, but it was the pilot who was that last person to speak to air traffic controllers. That was the voice heard saying "good night Malaysian 370." Remember for weeks and weeks we were told it was the co-pilot.

As for the search itself, we now have a new possible signal today heard by one of these sonobuoys. We're going to get into exactly how these things work. But basically they're these floating microphones that these search teams - here they go -- they toss them off these airplanes into the ocean below just to listen. And so if you're counting along with us the last couple of days, this is the fifth credible ping that could be coming from the missing black boxes, the plane's flight data or cockpit voice recorders.

So, let's talk about this altitude here significance today because this purported dip of some 30,000 feet, this happened after the plane's initial course changed, after the flight had crossed Malaysia and flown back out over water. Here it goes. Keep in mind, the plane's next move was that jaunt around Indonesia. So we might be talking not one but two maneuvers to avoid radar detection.

And this is where we have to pause because CNN analysts have doubts about this theory that the airplane actually dropped. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: You know, this is suspect information because they have it on radar and then they don't have it on radar. This is a Boeing 777. This is not a, you know, this is not a jet copter. It doesn't go from 35,000 feet to 5,000 feet in the blink of an eye. So didn't radar pick up the ascent and the decent? Something about this isn't right and I think we need more information.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: More information. Let's do that right now. Let's go to CNN's Martin Savidge. He is back in that flight simulator with flight instructor Mitch Casado.

And so, you know, the theory suggests that this 777 dropped, as we heard Mary Schiavo sort of poking maybe some holes, but the fact that it could have gone from 35,000 feet to maybe 5,000 feet over water and then climb back up to cruising altitude, can a plane even physically do that?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The plane can do it. And, in fact, Mitchell, why don't you - why don't you do that? Now, we're not at 35,000 feet. We're at 10,000 feet. Because to go from 35,000 feet to 4,000 feet, even if you send this plane rocketing over the top and doing a roller coaster kind of dive, which is what Mitchell is doing now and why you begin to hear the sink rate alarm going off, that would still take this plane about maybe 10 to 12 to 15 minutes. So, it's a long time is what I'm telling you. A big jet to go from a very high altitude down to 4,000 feet.

We level off here right now. We can quiet it down and let me show you just what -- we actually are over the Straits of Malacca for this simulation. Let's (INAUDIBLE) but let's show you what a jumbo jet, which this is, this is why Mary has these doubts, flying at this altitude, flying around here. Anybody who would be -- happen to be in a ship, and this is one of the busiest shipping areas in the world, would see a giant aircraft like this just a few thousand feet above the ground. And it's going to be very dramatic, right, Mitchell? I mean it's going to be not only visually strong, it's going to be noisy.

MITCHELL CASADO, 777 FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR: Oh, extremely noisy. I mean you're going to have -- this plane flies at the speeds they're talking about --

SAVIDGE: Give us some maneuvers while you're going this because to show -

CASADO: Yes.

SAVIDGE: You know, if you try and think of this airplane acting as, say, a small Cessna or any kind of F-18 or maneuvering over the waterway here at this very low altitude, because 4,000 feet for a plane like this is a - it's a hazardous place to fly.

CASADO: It is. It's not designed to stay at 4,000 feet for sure.

SAVIDGE: And so I - you know, I realize this is the new data. This is coming from - from a source. So why didn't a ship see it? Why didn't people along the coast hear it? And what was going on inside the plane? Was it an emergency? Was it a struggle in the cockpit? (INAUDIBLE) things we still haven't figured out. I'm afraid it doesn't shed any more light, it only adds to the ongoing mystery, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Definitely adds to the mystery. Martin and Mitch, thank you both very much.

We just want to broaden the discussion and bring two people in. And remember this source says this plane -- let me just remind you, you know - said it disappeared from radar. And from that detail it was then deduced that this 777 dropped in altitude. So does this, as Martin was pointing out, you know, could this have indicated an emergency in the cockpit? Maybe foul play? You know, on that, we don't know. But let's talk about what we do know. Let me bring in our aviation analyst, you just saw her a minute ago, Mary Schiavo, is a former inspector general for the Department of Transportation and is now a plaintiff's attorney for victims of transportation accidents, and Les Abend is a captain of a Boeing 777 and a contributing editor for "Flying" magazine.

So welcome to both of you.

And, Les, before we get into this, and I'm watching you shake your head and nod your head watching everything we've just seen, first, just help me understand. If we're talking about the possibility of this plane dropping to 4,000 to 5,000 feet for 120 nautical miles, can you translate that for me? Is that five minutes? Is that 55 minutes?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: First of all, I hate using the term drop because it could have been a nice gradual decent at about 2,500 feet a minute. To answer your question, about 12 minutes.

BALDWIN: Twelve minutes?

ABEND: Yes, maybe, or even less if it was a smoother decent. So it really - at 35,000 feet, using a 3:1 ratio, the math is about 105 miles is what it would take, which essentially could be done within 120 miles, obviously, within that. So - and that's a gradual, normal type decent.

Could it have done it much more rapidly? Yes, absolutely. We're trained to do it under certain circumstances. But this whole premise of this radar now being released to us, it doesn't make sense because if we - we all remember the Asian accident, things were progressively - as they were found, were progressively introduced to the media. So this is data that should have been - that should have been released way back when. I think there might be some embarrassment here.

BALDWIN: I think that is a whole other part of the story, right -

ABEND: Yes. Yes.

BALDWIN: The embarrassment and the lack of information.

But let me just stay on the point that this plane went on, off and then back on radar. And at that altitude, whether it was a very calm decent or not, could it - I mean, really, is that possible to totally evade radar detection at that altitude?

ABEND: I've said before, I -- all I know from my en route charts is where air space ends and begins. As far as knowing as a pilot, and any pilot, doesn't really have very specific knowledge about how far radar extends. I'm always under the impression I'm under radar. So to do that, and even at the altitude of 4,000 or 5,000 feet, that's not going to -- you're not going to evade radar at that altitude.

BALDWIN: Mary Schiavo, and, again, this is - this is the if part of this whole story. If one has some sort of nefarious intention (INAUDIBLE) of, you know, getting on this airplane, whether they're in the cockpit or elsewhere, could one educate himself on how to avoid radar detection by flying over x place around the world at x altitude? Possible?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, one could educate oneself to do it. But for most radar, and if the civilian radar had been working, you would have to get that plane down to a couple hundred feet, not a few thousand feet. And I think the most obvious conclusion of this report is that it didn't happen. Because as Les just said, it descended -- to do a gradual decent it would have taken 100 and some miles, or 100 miles. But then remember, it climbed back up.

BALDWIN: How would you explain --

SCHIAVO: So in the space of 125 miles -

BALDWIN: How would you explain then -

SCHIAVO: Go ahead.

BALDWIN: Even a gradual decent at that altitude. Why would a pilot want to do that?

SCHIAVO: Well, there are a couple of reasons you'd want to do it. If you had a - well, if you had a rapid decompression, if you lost the pressurization in your plane, you would descend, but rapidly. If you had a problem with communications, you would want to get out of the heavy air traffic areas, which is above 18,000 feet. You'd want to get down lower because if you didn't have a transponder, you wouldn't have any collision avoidance and you also couldn't talk to air traffic control. So there's a couple of reasons why you might want to get down from altitude, one faster than the other.

BALDWIN: OK. I have more questions for you, viewers have questions. Mary and Les, please stick around.

Just ahead, yet another signal, as we mentioned, detected in the Indian Ocean. Might this mean crews are close to finding the wreckage, finding the keys and those black boxes as to what happened on this plane?

Also ahead, just 24 hours after being stabbed by one of his fellow students, a teenager, this high schooler opens up to the cameras.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I just think that one day he get (ph) everyone he can -- I can forgive him and everyone else who got hurt can forgive him. Most of all, he needs to forgive himself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: How about that? Stunning there from that high school student. We are learning more, here he is, about the 16-year-old suspect, accused of this violent rampage. More from Pennsylvania, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Back to our special coverage here of the mystery of Flight 370.

You might have been wondering here as you're reading about these buoys being dropped from air force planes way down into the Indian Ocean. Well, they can receive and send signals. And today, one of these buoys actually sent a signal back up to this airplane that may have originated from Flight 370's black boxes.

So, here we have, you know, signals from Saturday, signals from just yesterday, and another possible signal today. The search could be getting warmer.

Jules Jaffe joins me now from San Diego. He is a research oceanographer at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

So, Jules, welcome. And we are all learning here new terminology. We've talking a lot about this towed pinger locator that the Ocean Shield, the Australian vessel, is pulling behind, and that's how they detected some of those other possible pings. And here we have now sonar buoys. How do they work? Are they as accurate?

JULES JAFFE, RESEARCH OCEANOGRAPHER: Yes, they're - actually, the Navy's been using sonar buoys for a really long time. I think they're a product of the Cold War when we were actually listening for Russian submarines.

BALDWIN: Wow.

JAFFE: They're a real efficient way to get a large area coverage. You basically deploy a canister from a moving aircraft and it releases a little microphone when it hits the water. And then the microphone goes down about 1,000 feet and it has a surface float that can send the sound signals to the plane that it was launched from. So we're actually getting the sonic information from below, but we're getting it in real time to the aircraft above.

BALDWIN: Is this methodology as accurate as the TPL, the towed pinger locater?

JAFFE: Yes, I think so. It's - they're all very high - you know, high fidelity microphones. It's actually pretty astounding that the sonar buoy works because if the pinger was actually on the bottom, which I think I was listening as to CNN around 14,000 feet, the sonobuoys only go to about 1,000 feet down. So that means there's a pretty long distance between the microphone that's listening and the actual source that's sitting on the sea floor. And the fact that they could hear it at that range is actually pretty astounding. Yes, it's just as accurate.

BALDWIN: OK. So that's one issue, part of the story. The other is the fact that they have not found any of the debris, any of the plane wreckage floating on the surface. We saw a number of satellite images, you know, some weeks ago. That wasn't it. So here we are, Jules, you know, a month or so of this wreckage being in the water. If and when they find it, what will be recognizable?

JAFFE: You know at depths (ph)?

BALDWIN: Yes.

JAFFE: Well, parts of it will be crushed. Anything that has air inside of it, of course, if it's sitting on the sea floor, will be crushed. And there will be, you know, writing on the outside. Probably the paint is still intact. We'll be able to -- with a good, underwater camera system, as we hope we will use and find the wreckage if we can, will be able to identify the fuselage and probably some of the tail parts and wings and other parts of it. So I think it, in the best of all scenarios, it would be fragmented, but will be identifiable using cameras.

BALDWIN: Jules Jaffe, oceanographer with Scripps. Jules, thank you so much.

Coming up, the families, they are still waiting here in absolute agony for any word of what happened to this plane. Some of them are still holding on to hope that their loved ones are safe. So we'll have that for you.

Also ahead, we will take you live to Pennsylvania where police say this 16-year-old student went on a stabbing spree before classes even began yesterday morning, injuring 21 people, most of them his fellow classmates. We want to focus, coming up, on the heroes who are emerging from this tragic story, including this young man.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I could barely move because I got stabbed in the back. And it was just -- had to have help going to the next room and then putting pressure on my wound to make sure I didn't bleed out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We are learning quite a bit more today about what happened during that stabbing spree that injured nearly two dozen young people at this Pennsylvania high school. And we're hearing for the very first time today from William "Buzz" Yakshe, the school resource officer who was hurt in that attack. Amazing story here. You know what he told CNN he's concerned about today? His answer was the other victims. He calls them his kids.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM "BUZZ" YAKSHE, FRANKLIN HIGH SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICER: Do you know what it feels like to have 20 kids in the hospital? I'm concerned. They're my kids, you know? And I just hope that you can understand that. You know, these kids are like my own kids. I've been with them for 10 years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: One of Officer Yakshe's kids is Brett Hurt here. You see Brett was stabbed in the back yesterday morning, allegedly by this fellow student armed with not just one but those two knives. His life was saved by his friend, Gracy Evans (ph), who quickly applied pressure to his wounds.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRETT HURT, WOUNDED IN HIGH SCHOOL STABBING SPREE: It was all kind of like a blur. The only thing I remember is messing around with Gracy and like bumping her out of the way because it's -- usually I just goof off in the morning just a little bit and be playful. The next thing I know the kid runs (ph) by and hits me in the back and that's when everything just went into straight chaos.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Miguel Marquez is live there outside of the high school, the Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, where police are searching now for a motive.

And, Miguel, are they any closer? I mean I know it's been barely 24 hours later, but what are investigators looking into today?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, presumably they are closer. They've seized computers, at least one cell phone, reams of boxes out of the home of Mr. Hribal yesterday and into late last night. Here at the school, they're going through the forensics here. Also talking to a slew of students and anybody who may have known him, trying to paint that picture, trying to understand how much thought he put into walking into this school with two eight to 10 inch kitchen knives and started slashing people up and what was it that triggered that event.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: Do we have any more on this attacker's state of mind? I mean I've read what his attorney said, saying, you know, he doesn't suffer from any kind of mental illness. Do we know any more about his state of mind when this happened?

MARQUEZ: We do know that when he was subdued yesterday, finally, the one thing that he kept saying to those that were around him was, I just want to die, I just want to die. So something clearly set him off. This is something his lawyer has said as well, that this doesn't fit the pattern of this guy. We have heard sort of similar things but different from the students we've talked to. We've talked to many of them and they say, look, he was a very quiet guy, he was very shy. Some of them saying, he was very nice when we spoke to him. Others saying, well, he was a little on the creepy side. Not quite sure what to make of him. So clearly a very, very quiet guy. Not much on social media. Not much here at the school. Almost a nonentity. It might be difficult for investigators to really paint that picture of him.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: Our hearts and thoughts are with that community here today. Miguel Marquez in Murrysville. Thank you, Miguel.

Coming up, we'll take you back to more of our special coverage of Flight 370. Investigators say they have heard now a new series of pings possibly coming from the plane's flight data recorder and the black box. So how do they use that information to pinpoint exactly where this plane could be?

Also ahead, big, big news today. Did you hear? CBS announcing replacement for David Letterman. Who will take over the helm of "The Late Show"? We have that for you right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just about the bottom of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN.

Did you hear, "The Colbert Report" will soon fade away because Stephen Colbert will be the one succeeding David Letterman as host of "The Late Show" on CBS. Apparently we have heard that Colbert will ditch his mock conservative persona for the new gig.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, "THE COLBERT REPORT": Obama wants equality in the workplace. That makes no sense. Why would I stare at a man's chest? And my guest, FaceBook COO Sheryl Sandberg has a new book called "Lean In for Graduates." Take that parents who told them to stand up straight. Hillary Clinton announced she may run for president. I have not been this shocked since Mitt Romney announced he ran for president. This is "The Colbert Report."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: How could you not laugh at this guy? Colbert signed a five- year deal to host the CBS late night show starting whenever Letterman decides to step down next year. Remember, just one week ago, Letterman announced his retirement, sending shockwaves through the comedy world. Letterman turns 67 this weekend. And this is what we have from Colbert saying this, quote, "I never dreamed that I would follow in his footsteps, though everyone in late night follows Dave's lead. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go grind a gap in my front teeth." Stephen Colbert for you. Now, in the hunt for Flight 370, a possible new signal heard underwater in this search area. Australian officials say a plane detected a possible black box signal from these sonar buoys. Here they are being thrown off some of these aircraft into the Indian Ocean. So if you're counting along with us here, this is now the fifth signal heard thus far.