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Flight 370 May Have Descended Below 5,000 Feet; Malaysia Scrambled Jets to Look for Flight on Day of Disappearance; New Pings Detected; Colbert Replaces Letterman; Spurlock's "INSIDE MAN" with Paparazzi; Q&A from Viewers

Aired April 10, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Bottom of the hour, I'm Brooke Baldwin, and new information today coming in from Malaysia's highest ranks that changes what we thought we knew about the plane's path.

It turns out that after that plane took that mysterious left turn, disappeared from the radar, flying about 120 nautical miles off the grid. Translation? About 12 minutes flying time.

And according to data, the only way it could have avoided detection like this is if it made a rapid descent in altitude to somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 feet.

But as for whether or not this was a deliberate act to avoid radar detection, we still don't have that answer.

A source also telling CNN that Malaysia's air force did send aircraft out to search for Flight 370 the day it was reported missing. Malaysia's government, though, has just denied this claim on Twitter, here's the tweet, calling it, quote, "a false allegation."

But let's talk about the plane's purported dip, first suggested today, not just one, but two sources close to this investigation, because they say it happened after that initial course change, that the plane was lost to radar for those 120 nautical miles.

And keep in mind the plane's next move was to jaunt around Indonesia, so we might be talking about not just one but two maneuvers to avoid detection of radar.

That said, we are hearing a lot of skepticism about the purported descent, just pointing that out.

So, Martin Savidge, let me go back to you here in our flight simulator, along with pilot trainer Mitchell Casado in that 777 simulator.

Can you just walk me through possible scenarios here when we talk about the change in altitude? What exactly -- how would that work?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sure. Sure, we can. I mean, keep in mind there has been a number of different reports that have come out over the weeks about altitude of this aircraft and what it was doing at certain times.

But this latest one, how it got down to 5,000, 4,000 feet, what we've done to help demonstrate this is right outside our front windshield here is us, but, as if you were looking at it from just outside the aircraft, because this is the best way to show you angles of attack, dives and motions of the aircraft.

So, if I said we had to get down from cruise to 4,000 feet and we had lots of time, Mitchell, show us what that kind of descent would feel like, which is -- what would that rate be, roughly?

MITCHELL CASADO, PILOT/FLIGHT TRAINER: Roughly, on average, about 22, 2,000 to 2,200 feet per minute, somewhere in there.

SAVIDGE: OK, so that would be, say, the typical kind of descent if you're going in to land at an airport, right? When they say, hey, we are now making our descent into Atlanta, this is that.

If you look at that aircraft, it's slightly nose-angled down. This is a very, gentle normal kind of descent. OK, that's example one. Take us off that.

But say it wasn't that. Say it was the horrible, terrible, got-to-get- it-right-down-on-the-deck-as fast-as-we-possibly-can descent.

Mitchell, if you would, give us that kind of descent.

CASADO: OK, so I've actually taken off autopilot.

SAVIDGE: And remember, you know, if you're trying to go from 35,000 to 4,000 feet that's still going to take like 14 -- 12, 14 minutes.

But notice now. This is a dive. You're pushing the aircraft beyond what is safe to operate. You can see it is nose down. You can see that the air brakes are deployed. The alarms are going off in the background here, warning you you could be doing damage to the aircraft.

And this is now descending where the numbers are spinning so fast you can't really get a real idea of how quickly you're going down.

So, that's the emergency dive to get down to 4,000 feet. It's probably even beyond an emergency dive.

CASADO: Yeah, absolutely.

SAVIDGE: So, there you have it, Brooke. Those are the two ways to get there.

But here's the other thing to point out. Once you're at 4,000 feet, this is a jumbo jet now roaring down the Strait of Malacca, which is a heavily traveled waterway. How come nobody heard this thing in the middle of the night?

How come nobody looked up and said, Wow, that plane is really big and really low? And apparently nobody did. So, to think of a plane like this flying that low, it is not a comfortable feeling.

BALDWIN: All good questions, gentlemen. Thank you so much for sort of explaining the two possible scenarios. We just don't know the answers yet. Thank you.

Coming up next, we have some pretty amazing video from underwater. This is the latest technology these searchers are using to try to listen so closely to possible pings from those two black boxes.

This device, it's called the sonar buoy. We will explain how this works, how this is helping, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Searchers hunting for Flight 370 detected a possible new signal underwater, raising hopes that they may be closing in on the flight's so-called black boxes. And this could explain exactly what caused the plane with those 239 people on board just to vanish.

Take a look at this video here. We're going to explain what this thing is. This signal was detected by these sonobuoys that have been deployed by this Australian plane.

How do they work? Chad Myers has an answer or two. And, Chad, we've talked about towed pinger locators. That's one way of listening for these possible pings.

A sonobuoy, what is it?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It is World War I, World War II technology to find submarines.

BALDWIN: Wow.

MYERS: Because we didn't have the technology like we do now.

They throw these listening devices. There are active sonobuoys, but these are the passive sonobuoys. They are just listening for something out there.

They get thrown out of the P-3 Orion airplane. This is Australia's airplane that did this. They land in the water. There's a string, an umbilical cord about a thousand-feet long. It goes all the way to that thousand-feet below the surface, and then like a little balloon pops up on top.

That balloon is that bobber. It keeps the thing up that. It's also its antenna. So think of this 1,000-foot-long piece, just a big antennae that goes all the way to the surface.

If this microphone hears something, it sends that signal back to the aircraft, and you can hear it for almost eight hours this thing will work down below the surface. And they're listening to it.

Here is what we know about this buoy. It came out of the P-3 Orion Australian ship -- Australian plane. It landed in the water and down here listening for pings, only listening, not pinging itself. That would be the active sonobuoy. These are only the passive, only the listeners.

Back up to the top, there's the antenna, and it sends it back up to where the airplane is.

Here's what we know, right now. This is MarineTraffic.com. We've heard all about these boats and these ships out there. We finally can show you one.

Here is a live picture of what Ocean Shield has done over the past 12 hours. It is here, going back and forth over this. I have measured this square. It's about 47 square miles.

We also know that the HMS Echo is in the area. It's over here, still kind of staying out of the way, because this is the only ship they want in this area so there aren't pings and clicks and other things coming out of other vehicles, other pingers, other planes, other fish finders, whatever. They're trying to keep this only quiet so that the Ocean Shield can find more of these, as well.

But good news now, we did find something. They'll be dropping these little sonobuoys all the way through this pattern here, a big checkerboard, trying to find more of the pings, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Yeah, hopefully, they have lots of them. Throw those resources at the search. Chad Myers, thank you.

MYERS: You're welcome.

BALDWIN: And coming up next, we're going to stay on this story. You still have all kinds of questions here about this missing plane, everything from how long the plane would take to actually sink to the ocean floor, to why maintenance records for the plane have yet to be released.

Plus, the story a lot of you are talking about and tweeting about, huge announcement from CBS today that it will be Stephen Colbert taking over for late-night host David Letterman.

Will he stay in character? Does the timing of the announcement mean anything? Where are the ladies, late at night? We will talk about that next.

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BALDWIN: All right, let's take a quick check of the Dow, oh, down quite a bit, down triple-digits here, 15 minutes before the end of the closing for the day today, down 227, investors feeling a bit of anxiety before the first-quarter earnings season.

That starts tomorrow with JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, with those two companies.

And now this, shedding a tear, perhaps you are today. "The Colbert Report" will soon be history.

Stephen Colbert will be the one to succeed David Letterman as host of "The Late Show" on CBS. Apparently, Colbert will ditch his mock- conservative persona for those new late-night gig.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, COMEDY CENTRAL'S "THE COLBERT REPORT": Tonight, did the CIA go too far to fight terrorism? If you answered yes, the drones are on the way.

Then, standardized tests get an update. Reading comprehension will now be limited to 140 characters.

And my guest Dame Jane Goodall has a new book, "Seeds of Hope -- Wisdom and Wonder From the World of Plants." Joke's on her. It's printed on dead plants.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right, so here's the deal. Colbert signed a five-year contract to host the show starting whenever Letterman decides to step down next year.

Letterman, by the way, turns 67 this weekend, and he has been doing "The Late Show with David Letterman" on CBS since the early '90s. Before that, he did "Late Night" on NBC.

So, our senior media correspondent Brian Stelter and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES," joining me here, which, you know, this is awesome in your world to cover this kind of mega-announcement, but I keep thinking who is Stephen Colbert without Stephen Colbert?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: I think we're all about to find out. It's going to be quite a reinvention he does. He does interviews, once in a while, out of character.

BALDWIN: Really.

STELTER: I have a hard time describing him out of character. I think most people would, even if you have seen him once or twice be his normal self. So, he will have to, over the next eight or nine months, kind of reintroduce himself as his real self.

BALDWIN: How do you think this worked behind closed doors, because we heard the Letterman announcement, what was it, last week?

STETLER: Yeah, this time last week.

BALDWIN: There were lots of very talented people -- we're going to get to the women issue in a minute -- but there are a lot of very talented people. How do you think they whittled it down? STELTER: Colbert always seemed to be in line for this job. "The New York Times" has reported that his contract was in sync with Letterman's on purpose.

And, clearly, he was pretty eager for it if it only took a week between the time Letterman told CBS he wanted to retire and the time they could announce a successor.

But CBS executives are saying there weren't any serious negotiations until after Letterman said he was ready to retire. They were waiting for Letterman. They didn't want to appear to be pushing him out --

BALDWIN: OK.

STELTER: -- before they announced this.

BALDWIN: OK.

STELTER: But it really is generational change. We're talking about a 49-year-old coming into this job, now competing against Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon. We know what the late night wars will be like for this next generation.

BALDWIN: Brian Stelter, where are the ladies? Tina Fey? Ellen DeGeneres?

STELTER: That's what we were saying, this time last week. Isn't it time to have a woman hosting one of these big-three network, late- night shows.

BALDWIN: What are the networks afraid of?

STELTER: I don't know if they are afraid of a woman, so much as they don't know if they have -- if there is a woman out there who would bring in the audience they think Stephen Colbert would.

Now, I don't agree with that. I do think if you put in a Tina Fey or Amy Poehler or even Chelsea Handler, someone like that, they would draw in a big audience to the networks.

Colbert might be a safer choice. Colbert has a young, attractive audience at Comedy Central. He's going to bring them over to CBS.

But I do think we will see many more programs in late night, hosted by women, in the next few years. Chelsea Handler is not going to be the only one. There is an audience for more shows hosted by women in late night.

BALDWIN: You heard it here, first. Mr. Stelter, thank you very much, and we'll be watching for you, of course, as we always do, Sunday mornings, 11:00 Eastern, "RELIABLE SOURCES." So, thank you, sir.

STELTER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: And now to this, many of us hate what they do and yet still consume what they produce. The paparazzi, admit it, the celeb moment, the celeb caught in a bad moment, you might click on that.

Well, to get that one second of impropriety can actually take hours of work for photographers. And, so, Sunday, CNN will go behind their cameras, show you just how competitive the cult of celebrity can be.

Want you to watch this. This is a clip from the season premiere of Morgan Spurlock's "INSIDE MAN."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Talk to me. What's up?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Khloe Kardashian's at Stanley with her mom.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm on my way.

MORGAN SPURLOCK, CNN HOST, "INSIDE MAN": He just got word from one of his scouts that Khloe Kardashian is at a restaurant with her mom.

So what is the story of Khloe and Lamar?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Allegedly, Lamar Odom has an addiction, and Khloe is on the verge of leaving him. Whether that's true or not, nobody actually really knows for sure, but inside of every magazine this week, there's some story pertaining to Khloe Kardashian.

SPURLOCK: So it's a big --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a big one to get.

SPURLOCK: Should I try and stay back, or should I get out of the car?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just draws too much attention to yourself, so it's better to just sit in the car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm looking. I'm looking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's coming out the back door.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back door.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: This is crazy. The world of paparazzi, we'll watch for that on "INSIDE MAN."

Also, he goes inside from college athletes to cybergenics to cyberspying. Watch Morgan Spurlock, "INSIDE MAN." The season premiere is Sunday, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

Coming up next, you have asked; we have answers about this missing plane, or answers as best we can.

Alex asks, "Decompression was my first thought when a plunge in altitude to below 5,000. Where are the maintenance records?" Good question. Let's find an answer, next here on CNN. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Not a single shred of debris found 35 days now after Malaysia Flight 370 disappeared and so everyone is wondering how this plane possibly hit the water somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean.

Might it have been a speed dive? Could it have been an intentional slower dissent, a midair explosion? Could the plane have landed in tact?

We're getting some answers here with Michael Kay, retired lieutenant colonel in the military.

Can you walk me through because we're reporting that this plane at some point after the left-hand turn descended to 4 or 5,000 feet. What are different ways in which it could have descended?

MICHAEL KAY, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, as I said before, the where, the what, and the why. I just want to be a little cautious about jumping to the why, but for the purpose of exploring a few hypothesis, there are three reasons.

The first would be compression, for the passengers. Aircrafts normally fly around 35,000 feet. If you get a bang or explosion, anything that hurts the integrity of the hull, we go through and train and we're put into a chamber and we're put in 8,000 feet and the chamber is put in 35,000 feet.

It's very, very painful. You want to get the aircraft down because it's painful and then because of hypoxia. It could be going under an airway. That is in a more nefarious type of situation.

BALDWIN: What does that mean, airway?

KAY: It's like a road in the sky. That's what airlines fly. They fly at different levels, different flight levels. So flight 100 would be 10,000 feet.

BALDWIN: OK.

KAY: It's like a square box in the sky, and you have a base, and if you want to cross under the airway and you're not speaking to any agency's radar, you have to go under the airway, so you have to descend.

And then the third one is just a mechanical problem of some sort that would require you getting below 10,000 feet in order to get oxygen and, again, that would suggest that there was something wrong with the integrity of the airplane.

BALDWIN: OK.

KAY: Those are the three hypothesis.

BALDWIN: Three scenarios there. Let me jump to one question from Michael. Michael's question -- forgive me. Alex asked this. Decompression was my first thought with plunge in altitude to below 5,000. Where are the plane's maintenance records?

KAY: That's a good question. I think the plane's maintenance records will be held within Malaysia Airlines in Kuala Lumpur.

BALDWIN: And do the alternate routes have anything to do with the search where Flight 370 is ongoing?

KAY: I don't think so. The senior captain was a training captain. It was his job to bring on relatively junior co-pilots on to the fleet and train them.

I think he was hugely passionate about flying, and I think, you know, having the simulator in his apartment wasn't anything new for me.

I wouldn't think it's the norm. I've got lots of friends that fly for Virgin and British Airways, Delta. They don't have simulators in their apartment, but I don't think it's odd. I think the guy was just really passionate about flying.

And what he's going to do is he's just going to have lots of various diversions and whatnot in the computer to practice.

The reason they could have been wiped? Well, you know, a Mac or a home PC only has a certain amount of storage space, so you might want to get rid of them and practice other ones.

BALDWIN: Right, and nothing suspicious. Again, the FBI's been looking through that, nothing from them, thus far.

Michael Kay, thank you so much.

KAY: Good to see you. Thanks so much.

BALDWIN: I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for watching.

"THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper is next, but before I let you go, let's go there.