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Special Report: Mystery of Flight 370; Preview of New Season of 'Parts Unknown'

Aired April 11, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Is it fair to consider this a botched investigation, you think?

JUSTIN GREEN, AVIATION ATTORNEY: It's botched messaging. That's as far as I could go. They -- the one thing you have to understand, if you're going to say something, make sure you write, because the families are basically hanging on every word that comes out of the investigation. So I wouldn't necessarily say. I mean, it's a huge, huge task, challenge to find this wreckage. The same way it was a huge challenge to find the Air France wreckage. So I don't really fault them for that, but what they have come out with and had to pull back is just the first time I have ever seen it.

JEFF WISE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: And it's so important, because in the absence of physical wreckage, like have in almost every other crash, these sort of statements are all we have to hang our hats on.

LEMON: But the question is, we have heard reports that they scrambled jets, but they did it too late. Getting the radar information, actually telling people about a missing plane. Had they had their ducks in a row, don't you think that it might have been a different investigation at this point?

GREEN: They may be a week ahead of where they are right now, which with the batteries dying on the locators would have maybe made a big difference.

LEMON: Every minute makes a big difference, doesn't it, in this particular--

WISE: Yes. Especially, Don, I think you're right. To make statements that then you have to retract or walk back from, it's happened far too many times. And it hasn't just been the Malaysians. The Australians also had to walk back some of their--

LEMON: I want you guys to respond to this. Here is what it says. Here in this country, we have Senator Rand Paul. Rand Paul is saying let's arm every single pilot, every one. He says that's the most cost-effective way of preventing another 9/11. I thought we had the full screen. Is that a good idea?

WISE: Well, it wouldn't have really helped in this case, because the leading suspect, as far as the Malaysian authorities are concerned, is the pilot, so he's already -- according to them -- the cause of all the mayhem in the first place. Giving him a gun on top of everything else, I don't think it is going to really do any good.

LEMON: What do you think?

GREEN: Well, the armored cockpit doors have really kind of prevented another 9/11, so you already have that in place. Now there are pilots, and I have spoken to a lot of them, who want the protection of a gun, but then you are introducing a weapon, and again, as Jeff just said, sometimes it may be the pilot.

LEMON: But aren't the air marshals armed, usually?

GREEN: Yes, the air marshals are armed, and they are on the airplane, and that does kind of respond to some of what Senator Paul is talking about.

LEMON: So if the air marshal is armed and the pilot is armed, and they don't know, you know, the pilot doesn't usually know who the air marshal is, does he?

GREEN: Usually not. They will check in sometimes with the flight attendants, and the pilots might know through them.

LEMON: But it's kind of easy to figure out. Usually if I am sitting next to an air marshal, I will say you're an air marshal. Why do you think so? Well, the hair cut, the shirt over the, you know, not that I want to give anything away. But don't you think at least it would counter-balance, if the air marshal is armed, and there is an air marshal on every single flight, one or two, or however many, several-- and you have a pilot that's armed? You don't think that would help?

WISE: Maybe what you need is go the other way, the opposite of what Rand Paul is talking about. If you are worried, start becoming worried about the pilot, the current situation is there is a dead bolt, there is a key pad to get into the cockpit, but there is also just a dead bolt. So an extremist, the pilot can just flip that piece of metal. But what's happening now is if you start to doubt the pilot and you want to think, well, maybe the people in the back should be able to take over if they need to -- it could be something as innocent as a pilot having a heart attack after having locked himself in. Maybe you take away the dead bolt. Is all I'm saying.

LEMON: So many things that could come into play here. I always find it interesting that the flight attendant stands there with the cart. What good is that cart going to really do? Except for a few seconds. You know? Just me. Thank you, Jeff, Justin Green, thank you, Jeff Wise. We appreciate it.

Finding wreckage from flight 377 not only depends on where it may have crashed, but also on how it hit the water. It's a big factor in determining how much debris could be out there. CNN's Gary Tuchman explains now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Not a speck of wreckage has been found from Malaysia Airlines flight 370. Raising the question, is it possible all the wreckage sank?

JIM TILMON, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: The chances of not having debris? Very, very remote.

TUCHMAN: Experts say the amount of debris on top of the water would vary based on the scenario of how it when down. For example, if it went down in a steep dive at high speeds. That's what happened to an Alaska Airlines jet that plunged into the Pacific off the coast of California in 2000, killing everyone aboard. Much of the wreckage sank. But not all of it.

MARY SCHIAVO: The wings were torn off. Large parts of the fuselage were torn apart. And there was a very large debris field, and the debris field was fairly scattered. And even weeks later, parts and pieces and personal effects were still being combed from the ocean, including by fishermen.

TUCHMAN: What if there was a catastrophe in the plane's last few seconds, where it exploded in the air before crashing? That's what happened with TWA flight 800 off the coast of Long Island in 1996, and Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

SCHIAVO: In the case of an explosion in the air, the debris field is not scattered in terms of feet or hundreds of feet, it's miles. In Lockerbie, Scotland, it was scattered over many, many miles. Some pieces found as far away as ten or so miles at least. And in the case of TWA 800, the same thing. The debris field was very, very wide.

TUCHMAN: Then there is this scenario. A hijacking of an Ethiopian Airlines flight in 1996. In that case, the pilots ran out of gas during the hijacking and were forced to make an intentional landing in the Indian Ocean. Even that kind of landing would result in significant debris above the water.

TILMON: Remember, water is like concrete. You hit it hard enough and it just destroys the airplane's integrity. And you are going to have pieces that are going to be there, and it will open up things like compartments and sections of the airplane that have items that will float.

TUCHMAN: Indeed, that sentiment is widely agreed upon by experts. Here at the accident lab at the University of Southern California's Aviation Safety program, the director says crashes on the water will almost certainly leave floating debris. The lingering question? How far away will it float? The best case scenario for the Malaysia Airlines plane will be the type of landing made by US Airways pilot, Captain Sully Sullenberger on the Hudson River in New York City. But that is by far the most unlikely scenario.

TILMON: Sully did an incredible job of flying, but he landed on a river, and the river is pretty relaxed, let's say, by comparison with an ocean, where you have got swells of 10, 12, 16 feet. And it's pretty difficult to make that kind of landing on water.

TUCHMAN: The search, of course, continues for the wreckage. The landing scenarios just mentioned all part of the investigation. Gary Tuchman, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: All right, Gary, thank you very much. Next, crews are searching thousands of square miles, listening for a specific pinging noise. We are taking a closer look at these pinger detection teams. What is their training and what exactly are they listening for? And we are answering your questions, your viewer questions. Tariq (ph) asks, if pilots are both suddenly incapacitated in a catastrophic failure, can other crews still get into the cockpit? We were just talking about that. You're watching CNN's special coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Welcome back to our special coverage. I'm Don Lemon. Searchers are racing to find more clues this hour to find the missing Malaysia airliner. 30 crew members are aboard Australia's Ocean Shield right now. It is towing a pinger locator that has already detected four pings in the Southern Indian Ocean. No confirmation yet on if those pings are from flight 370, but time is running out to get as much information as searchers can before those pings stop altogether.

I want to bring in now CNN's Brian Todd in Washington. His unique look at how specialists on board are listening for those pings. Brian.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Don, we got access to Phoenix International. They are the company that makes that toad pinger locator that's actually listening for the sounds from the black boxes, but also, among the operators on board the Phoenix International -- on board the Ocean Shield, from Phoenix International, are these sound technicians. They are hunkered down in these control rooms on board the Ocean Shield. Their job is to do nothing but listen for those sounds and watch these monitors. They are doing it for hours on end, and right now we are all hinging on what they're listening to, just waiting for any word of any other sounds, possibly from those black boxes.

I spoke with Paul Nelson. He's a project manager for Phoenix International. I asked him about the process and the hours that these guys pull on board.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: What are the ups and downs they are going through?

PAUL NELSON, PROJECT MANAGER, PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL: There's two shifts. They work 12-hour shifts. So the first crew will work from midnight to noon, and the next team will work noon to midnight. You're monitoring the weather. You're watching what's coming as far as weather. You are monitoring the seas, and you're sitting in front of the screen, hoping and praying that you're going to hear something. It's very tedious. This whole operation is very, very tedious.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: So if you can just imagine what it's like sitting in those control rooms for all of those hours, listening, often just hearing absolutely nothing, and watching those monitors. I asked Paul Nelson if it sometimes doesn't drive the crew a little bit stir crazy, and he kind of laughed, and he said, Don, yes, but they look forward to the meal times. That breaks up the monotony.

LEMON: All right, Brian Todd, thank you very much, appreciate that.

Next, we are answering your viewer questions. Everything from how long it takes for a plane to sink, and what happens when both pilots become incapacitated. You're watching CNN special coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Every day new questions on the mystery of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 are pouring in from our viewers, and we're getting experts to answer them for you. Tweet your questions to @donlemon. And use a hashtag 370qs, 370qs. Back with me now is aviation attorney and former military pilot, Justin Green. CNN aviation analyst Jeff Wise, author of the book "Extreme Fear: the Science of Your Mind in Danger."

Got it.

I'm going to throw the first question to you and this is from Sarah Simrod (ph). Sarah says, this is for you, Jeff. "How long would it take for the plane to sink and how far would the drift be?"

WISE: It sounds like she's talking about a situation where the plane comes in Sully-style. It's in one piece, and gradually it starts to fill with water and goes down. Then it could take hours or days, conceivably, but I think most of the experts agree that it would be very difficult to land a plane like that in the open ocean, with big swells and so forth. In which case, you might likely see a much more catastrophic break-up. Big chunk of metal. Basically, just imagine dropping a cinder block into the ocean. It's going to go down pretty fast. We're talking 3 miles of water. Metal and water, it's going go pretty much straight down. You're looking at (inaudible), you had a pretty tight little pattern of metal on the ocean floor.

LEMON: All right, Justin, this one is (inaudible). Cody asks, "If pilots are both suddenly incapacitated in a catastrophic failure, can other crew still get into the cockpit?"

GREEN: Yes, with a key pad. Unless the bolts, the pilots have a kind of a last-minute bolt that they can latch, is latched, the flight crew will have the combination to get into the cockpit.

LEMON: All right, Justin, again, from you -- a related question from Akiru Hendricks (ph), who says, "what options would the Malaysian search planes have had if they found MH370 and pilots were unconscious?"

GREEN: I don't really understand the question.

LEMON: What options would the Malaysian search planes have had if they found MH370 and the pilots were unconscious?

WISE: Like a Payne Stewart (ph), like the plane's flying along zombie style and they fly alongside?

(CROSSTALK)

GREEN: From outside. Well, honestly, there is something that may come out in the future, which is the airplane could be remotely flown. No current airliner can be remotely flown. Someday, my kids and my grandkids for sure will be getting on airplanes where there isn't even a pilot on. But that's down the road. Right now, the jets flying alongside the airplane with unconscious pilots can't do anything.

WISE: Just watch them go.

GREEN: Just watch them go.

LEMON: Like they did with Payne Stewart, right. I have this one. This one is -- someone just sent this. It's from Jim Tarrolton (ph). And he says, and we talked, we discussed this a little bit. "Don Lemon, a plane running out of fuel falls backwards, tail first. When it hits tail first, what is the outcome?"

GREEN: I think there is a lot of issues in that question. If an airplane is on autopilot and it runs out of gas, the engines will stop powering the aircraft, the aircraft is going to slow, the auto pilot is going to try to maintain the altitude that's set. And then the airplane is going to come close to a stall, at which point the autopilot would be kicked off. So if the airplane lands tail first, there may be a break-up and maybe even a potentially violent break-up. But again, we don't know what happened.

LEMON: Okay. Jeff. Jay Stebbins (ph) asks "Would the plane have had enough fuel to make the drop, fly low and climb, and still have enough fuel to reach the pinger location?"

WISE: That's an excellent point. To go down low, this is the idea that over the Malay peninsula, in order to evade radar, it went down to 5,000 feet or 4,000 feet and then came back up. That would be a very intensive, fuel intensive maneuver. It would use up a lot of fuel, and maybe it wouldn't have had enough to really -- maybe we should rule it out on that grounds alone I guess is what he's saying.

LEMON: Nicholas Constant (ph) says, "the 777 is designed to glide when it runs out of fuel." I don't know what that means. But still.

GREEN: I guess what he is saying is after it runs out of fuel, if it's on autopilot, it is going to try to maintain the altitude. But what he's saying is it's going to glide like a glider.

LEMON: And fall into the ocean. But the ocean is so turbulent that it's still going to leave some -- it's not going to -- it's not going to land like on the Hudson, with completely placid water and not do anything yet. All right. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Justin, thank you, Jeff Wise, appreciate that. The Australian prime minister says he is confident that pings are from the black box. Coming up, I am going to talk live to an ocean explorer. Does he agree? And if these are the black boxes, what is the next step in retrieving them? You are watching CNN special coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Our favorite foodie returns to CNN this Sunday. Anthony Bourdain, he is back, season No. 3 of the Emmy winning "Parts Unknown." A special preview right now here, here is Anthony with our Brooke Baldwin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A lot of fans out there wondering where you will be gallivanting off to next. And I kind of want to begin with Vegas. Are you a Vegas person?

ANTHONY BOURDAIN, HOST, PARTS UNKNOWN: Not really. No. I have been pretty much immune to the charms of Vegas. Instinctively, it would be so easy to sneer at all this, to find it obscene and horrifying.

Lotus of Siam, great restaurant, and it's in a strip mall, you know, previously really all you could find there was like a massage and a beating.

BALDWIN: And then Russia, obviously Russia so much in the news recently. You went. Was it just before the Olympics?

BOURDAIN: The show is very much about what you can get if you're a friend of Vladimir Putin, and what is likely to happen to you if you are not.

BALDWIN: I remember when we chatted ahead of season two, and I will never forget your answer when you were talking about landing in Tokyo, and how it was like a big old trip. Anywhere like that this season?

BOURDAIN: Not that crazy. We shot in Bajia, in Brazil.

BALDWIN: Brazil.

BOURDAIN: Which is very sexy, very magical, musical, mystical place, but a sort of a personal favorite is the Lyon, France, show. As deep a dive in a really high test food porn as we've ever, ever done. It's -- if you're watching this show -- if you are planning on watching our Lyon show, for God's sakes, get yourself some good food. Don't find yourself sitting in your undies with a bag of stale chips for this one, because you're going to get hungry.

BALDWIN: Note to self. Anthony Bourdain, always a pleasure. April 13, 9:00 p.m., season 3, congratulations. We will be watching.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: We will be watching. Join Anthony Bourdain in Punjab, India, for the season premier of "Parts Unknown." That is Sunday night, 9:00 Eastern and Pacific, on CNN.

Debuting right after "BOURDAIN" is Morgan Spurlock's second season of "INSIDE MAN." Here's a clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MORGAN SPURLOCK, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER: Talk to me. What's up?

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

SPURLOCK: I'm on my way.

He just got word from one of his scouts that Khloe Kardashian is at a restaurant with her mom.

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 is some story pertaining to Khloe Kardashian. So it's a big one to get.

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

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just draws too much attention to yourself. So it's better to just stay in the car.

I'm looking, I'm looking.

Back door.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: I cannot think of a worse job. Not Morgan's. Paparazzi. And that is just one of the worlds Morgan goes inside. From college athletics to cyber spying. Watch Morgan Spurlock, "Inside Men." Season premiere is Sunday, 10:00 p.m. Eastern. We are back in 60 seconds.