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Aussie PM: "Very Confident" Pings from Plane; Still More Work to Do in Search for Flight 370; FedEx Truck Slams into Bus; 10 Killed

Aired April 11, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Happening now on NEWSROOM, closing in.

TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: We are very confident that the signals are from the black box.

COSTELLO: The search narrowing.

REPORTER: He went a little further than any Australian official has so far.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm confident they're in the right place.

COSTELLO: New American search power on the way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's pretty incredible if you look at where we started.

COSTELLO: Five weeks after disappearing from radar and from almost three miles down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If there's something on the surface, our Orion will find it.

COSTELLO: The search enters its fifth week.

You're live in the CNN news NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

COSTELLO (on camera): Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me. Day 35. The search area shrinks, but a sobering reality settles in. It may not shrink anymore. Five weeks and the batteries on the flight's so-called black boxes are now dead or dying. Still, this morning's upbeat assessment is encouraging.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBOTT: We have very much narrowed down the search area and we are very confident that the signals that we are detecting are from the black box on MH-370. We're now getting to the stage where the signal from what we are very confident is the black box is starting to fade and we are hoping to get as much information as we can before the signal finally expires.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNN's Matthew Chance is at the heart of the search in Perth, Australia. Good morning, Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. That's right. The search is continuing. Remember, it's a 24- hour search now so even though darkness has fallen here in Perth and in the area, 1,000 miles off the coast of Perth the search operation is still continuing, trying to detect more pings off the water.

But optimism was briefly raised earlier today despite the fact there's been no breakthrough reported by the mission, the search organizers here in Western Australia. Optimism briefly raised by comments made by Tony Abbott. He's the Australian Prime Minister. He's on an official tour of China, where of course the majority of the victims of the missing airliner came from.

And he went a little further than any other Australian official have gone by basically saying they've limited the search area down to a few kilometers and saying that he was confident that the signals they were detecting underneath the Indian Ocean were from the black box flight recorders. Nobody has gone that far, and indeed, as I said, within a few minutes afterwards, the head of the search operation, Angus Houston, was been saying there's been no actual breakthrough since last time we spoke in the past 24 hours.

So it was merely the prime minister summarizing his characterization of that ongoing search, Carol.

COSTELLO: Matthew Chance reporting live from Australia. As Matthew said, Australia's prime minister briefed China's president on the search for flight 370 as the two men met today in Beijing. Sky News reporter Brooke Corte joins us now live by phone from the Chinese capital. Brooke, tell us about this meet meeting. Brooke, are you there?

All right, we don't have Brooke. But basically the Australian prime minister briefed the families of those missing aboard that flight 370. And he told them the latest information today and maybe a little more. We'll try to get back to Brooke in just minute.

Let's bring in now ocean search specialist Rob McCallum, he helped in the search for Air France flight 447, and David Funk, he's a retired pilot for Northweset Airlines. Welcome to both of you.

ROB MCCALLUM, OCEAN SEARCH SPECIALIST: Good morning.

DAVID FUNK, RETIRED PILOT FOR NORTHWEST AIRLIENS: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Rob, Australia's prime minister says they've very much narrowed down the search area to within a few miles. I'm a little confused about that. Seriously? Have they narrowed it that much? MCCALLUM: The prime minister is privy to a lot more information than I am, but that does sound a trifle overconfident. We're moving now into a world that's incredibly dark. Working on a slope, working at incredible depths. So we still have a little ways to go. He has room for confidence, but not exact confidence.

COSTELLO: So room for confidence. And I'm just trying to figure out, because the entire search area is still the size of, I don't know, maybe it's a little smaller than New Mexico now. But then the prime minister seemed to intimate that the search area for the black boxes themselves is much smaller than that. Is that what he meant, Rob?

MCCALLUM: Yes, se's saying -- he's implying that the pinger location is an area of high probability within the overall search area. But ,again, we're not dealing in an exact environment. When you're dealing with acoustics or sound underwater, sound does not travel like it does through air. It can be bent, it can bounce, it can be influenced by a lot of factors. So until you actually have eyes on the wreckage, you can't be completely confident.

COSTELLO: David, let me ask you this, because those searchers searching by air, they were pretty pumped up by the Australian prime minister's comment.

FUNK: And they should be. The fact that we've got it narrowed down to - we'll say it's maybe the size of the state of Massachusetts, instead of the state of New Mexico. That gives it, from an aerial perspective, that's a lot smaller area for us to have to look at.

And, frankly, with the screwed-up information we continue to get from the Malaysians and knowing the geopolitics of that part of the world, some of this talk about the wide turns and the tracks and the altitudes, how much of that information that's coming out of the Malaysians at this point is really just -- they kind of want to tell us what's going on but they're afraid to reveal to their neighbors what their true capabilities of their radars are.

So I'm far more interested in what we're hearing under the sea from the pingers than I am about flight paths and altitudes. We find this airplane, and we will. As Rob knows, it's just going to be a very, long hard slog to get to it. We'll get the black boxes, we'll have a much better idea of what happened in this aircraft and why it wound up where it did, down there in the Indian Ocean.

COSTELLO: And of course, Rob, the reason there's so much optimism is because four separate times searchers picked up these pings that they're sure, fairly sure, are coming from the black boxes. But there was a fifth ping they said they picked up by sonar buoy that proved to be a false lead. So should they not do that anymore, drop buoys from airplanes with the sound detectors on them? Should they not use them anymore?

MCCALLUM: To be honest, at this stage with the batteries dying out, almost everything is worth a shot, to try and get another fix or two, any noise detection at all on those pingers. The fifth ping was a distraction, but we've got four good pings and that gives us a much better idea of where to deploy side scan sonar than we had a week ago.

COSTELLO: David, you're a pilot, of course. There's a theory out there this maybe the perfect crime, that someone flew the plane to the middle of the Indian Ocean with the intent to make it disappear. Is there any way to obscure the information recorded on those black boxes?

FUNK: Other than the fact that the cockpit voice recorder only goes back two hours and the airplane flew much longer than a two hour flight, so we'll only know what happened the last two, no way at all that from the flight deck or from inside the airplane that I'm aware of, or anyone that I know that's in the business has ever said, that you could modify what's on that flight data recorder.

There are literally thousands of bits of information and it goes back more than 30 days -- or goes back at least 30 days. So we're going to have a lot of info once we pull those things out. When I say the airplane, I mean the flight track, positions of flight controls, the temperatures the engines were producing, the amount of fuel flow at any given moment. There's a huge amount of data there. And once we get them up off the bottom - getting them off the bottom is Rob's area of expertise. I'll defer to him. It's a very difficult environment, as we all understand.

COSTELLO: Yes, because once they pinpoint where those black boxes are exactly, or come close at least, Rob, it's still going to take months, maybe years, to actually find the physical boxes, right?

MCCALLUM: That's right. Once we move to side scan sonar mode - sonar is deployed by one of two methods, either by autonomous underwater vehicle or on a sled that's towed behind a ship. An so with an AUV you might be searching 30 square miles a day. With a towed sled, maybe 120 square miles a day. So it's a slow and painstaking business.

And once we find the debris field, then and only then, can we start to deploy the remote-operated vehicles, the ROVs, to go down with lights and cameras and manipulator arms to explore the wreckage to recover the black boxes.

COSTELLO: Rob McCallum, David Funk, thanks for your insight as always.

FUNK: Great to be here.

MCCALLUM: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a desperate search to find those black boxes. But if and when they are found, you heard little bit about it, but we'll go into it even more. How will the teams retrieve these black boxes? We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: 35 days since the disappearance of flight 370. And officials are rushing to find the black boxes before those critical signals fall silent. But that's not the only challenge search teams face. They also have to retrieve the devices from ocean waters nearly three miles deep.

George Howell has more on how they can do it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Once you found the needle in a haystack, how do you extract it? That's what investigators are up against in the search for flight 370 as they try to hone in on the black boxes.

LT. COL. MICHAEL KAY, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Authorities and search operators actually found the needle before they found the haystack. It's quite unprecedented.

HOWELL: Once you know where to look, how do you get down there, some 14,000 feet below the Indian Ocean?

PETER GOELZ, FORMER NTSB MANAGING DIRECTOR: There's one of two ways you do it. You either do it with a remote vehicle that is not tethered to a ship on the top or you do it with a tethered remote vehicle.

HOWELL: The former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board says similar types of vehicles went almost 13,000 feet deep during the search for the cockpit voice and data recorders from the 2009 Air France crash off the coast of Brazil.

The recorders were found about two years after the crash, long after the pingers had died. Under water vehicles were also used to create artifacts from the Titanic. But before sending the vehicles down, investigators must first map the terrain, a step that takes time and requires patience.

GOELZ: If it's in rocky or cavernous terrain, it could be challenging. But once the wreckage is identified, these vehicles and operators have extraordinary capabilities.

HOWELL: Locating them is one thing, but pulling the black boxes from the incredible depths is another. The remote controlled vehicles, armed with sonar, cameras, lighting and remote control arms may sift through silt and potentially through wreckage in pitch dark waters.

GOELZ: It can be painstaking. It can be very difficult. Sometimes the boxes have separated from the wreckage. Sometimes the boxes have separated from their pingers. So this is going to being a long process.

HOWELL: George Howell, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Joining me now, Les Abend, a pilot for 777s.

Good morning, Les. LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Good morning, Carol. How are you?

COSTELLO: You've been with us for these 35 days. Are you still hopeful?

ABEND: I've always looked at this with rose-colored glasses. The prime minister is being optimistic. I like to hear from Marshal Houston covering this operation more than anything because he's very guarded with what he says. I think the information is a little bit more technical and accurate.

But, yes, I'm very hopeful. This is great news.

COSTELLO: So, I'm going to jump way far ahead and ask you this question. Once they find those black boxes and bring them up to the surface, how long does it take to retrieve information from them?

ABEND: You know, it depends on where they go. I'm thinking they'll send it to the NTSB headquarters in Washington, although I don't know that for a fact.

But, you know, this data can be disseminated probably in a week's time or less from what I know. It's a process. Once that process starts occurring, you can put in a program that will actually show what the airplane was doing, both from a profile point of view and from within the cockpit.

So, it will be exciting stuff. In addition, the fact that you recover black boxes, you can recover part of the wreckage with it which might mean you'll find the tail depending on how the airplane impacted. That will tell us a lot, too, just by finding wreckage.

COSTELLO: So, obviously, these black boxes are critical to solving this mystery. Is there any way to tamper with this black box or, you know, while the plane was in the air or on the ground or is it impossible?

ABEND: Your previous guest today, Dave Buck, indicated it really is. There's nothing you can do with the digital flight data recorder. There's no way of tampering with that.

The only way you can do anything is to pull a circuit breaker. That's not accessible to us in the cockpit in the 777. Cockpit voice recorder is the same thing. That's still not accessible to us. There's no way you can possibly erase data, move data.

It's just -- it's not something we as pilots have the capability of doing.

COSTELLO: OK. So, I'm going to ask the big question. From your observations these many days, what do you think happened?

ABEND: Yes, that's the $64 million question. You know, I've been going over this in my head. I've taken every aspect from a terrorist event to a passenger going berserk getting into the cockpit and the crew itself. Nothing makes sense to me from that angle. The only thing that makes sense is some sort of mechanical issue. We've really got to get credible information on this radar tracking from Malaysian because it just seems impossible on what was performed.

But if you take it from the steps of nefarious, there are a lot of holes in it. Granted, there are holes in the mechanical theory if you do a smoke or fume type situation also. But, you know, I lean toward the mechanical side. I'm open to it because everything seems to have holes to it.

COSTELLO: You're right about that. Les Abend, thank you so much for joining us.

ABEND: My pleasure.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the newsroom, ten people now dead after a fiery crash in northern California.

Stephanie Elam is at the crash site -- Stephanie.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, a devastating loss of some young minds and some people who probably love them. Coming up, you're going to hear from some people who were first on the scene.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It will be several more hours for the cleanup to finish after a three-vehicle accident in northern California that killed 10 people. A FedEx truck crossed a median and slammed head-on into a bus, a tour bus carrying students heading to a college tour last night. Five students, three chaperones and the drives of both the bus and the truck were killed.

Nearly three dozen more were taken to the hospital following that crash. It happened in Orland, California, about 100 miles north of Sacramento.

Stephanie Elam is at the crash site.

Good morning, Stephanie.

ELAM: Good morning, Carol.

It is devastating when you take a look at the loss of life. And when you take a look at it, as you can see day breaking here in California. I can tell you nine of the people on the bus died on scene, one person died at the hospital from their wounds.

But as this investigation continues, you can hear from the people who were first on scene just how dramatic it was and how scary it was. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of people screaming and begging for help, with all the flames and all the smoke. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of a sudden, I heard a sonic boom. When I got there everything was engulfed and it was still spewing up black smoke.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELAM: Now, we do know that some of the people who were there, who were in that bus have been discharged from the hospital already, but still when you look at the fact that five high school students lost their lives, three chaperones and the two drivers of the cars. There was another car involved that was sideswiped by the FedEx truck, they are believed to be OK.

So, that is a little bit of good news. But when you think about these young minds who were coming up to take this college tour, to have this devastating turn of events, it's just really tragic, Carol.

COSTELLO: Do police have any clues at all about why that truck crossed over the median?

ELAM: It is really a bizarre one. At this point they say they don't know. We do know the NTSB is going to come out here to investigate. But one thing I can tell you about is the side here, the median is actually just bushes, just shrubbery. There's no metal line between it or anything.

So, these plants pretty much what separates northbound from southbound. So, you talk about a semi-truck coming through there, there's nothing really that slow it down, a very scary situation.

COSTELLO: Stephanie Elam reporting live this morning -- thank you.

Still to come on the NEWSROOM, the so-called black boxes for Flight 370. What happens when or if investigators finally recover them? CNN's Nic Robertson has the answer from Malaysia.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you for joining me.

It's day 35 in the mystery of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. The search area has shrunk again and the best window of opportunity is now closing. Here is Australia's prime minister earlier this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: We're now get together the stage where the signal from what we are very confident is the black box is starting to fade and we are hoping to get as much information as we can before the signal finally expires. We have very much narrowed down the search area and we are very confident that the signals that we are detecting are from the black box on mh370.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Here is what else is new this morning: today's search area, narrowed to about 18,000 square miles.