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Bluefin-21 Set To Search Again Soon; Co-Pilot's Phone Detected As Jet Vanished; Upgraded FAA Tracking System Uses GPS; Pentagon: Russia's Close Flights "Provocative"

Aired April 15, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And even some heavy rain totals as we're looking at rain throughout the day even through the overnight hours into the northeast, clearing out tomorrow. Here comes the big story. All about the temperature drop. It was gorgeous. Notice the eastern seaboard trying to hang on to some of the warm temperatures, all of that cold air, below-average temperatures filling in a good 20 degrees below average. Keep in mind, just two days ago, we were seeing 15 degrees above average. Take that, add it together, talking about 30 degrees of a temperature change in just about 48 hours for the northeast. No one is happy now -- Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: No. But tomorrow, the next day, they will be better. Indra Peterson, many thanks.

A treat for sky watchers last night, a blood moon that came as a result of a total lunar eclipse. It is caused when the earth passes directly between the sun and moon. Thousands flocked to the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles to catch a glimpse, but if you slept through it, missed it on the east coast because of all the clouds, do not worry, three more blood moons expected to rise over the next two years.

The next hour of NEWSROOM starts now.

Happening now in the NEWSROOM, surfaced. The sonar sub's hunt, cut short.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just hit a deeper spot than we initially planned.

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COSTELLO: The first mission aborted hours early. Direct challenge, a Russian fighter jet buzzing an American warship.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Pentagon calling the 90-minute close encounter provocative and unprofessional.

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COSTELLO: Making 12 close-range passes.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This, I think, is the most sort of direct challenge to a U.S. destroyer.

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COSTELLO: As violent protests sweep across the country. Hail storm. Millions in the path of severe weather.

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PETERSONS: The bigger story is this huge temperature clash.

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COSTELLO: Temperatures plummeting 30 degrees. Storms turning into snow. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. The Bluefin 21, that drone submarine, could be back under water at any moment now. Right now though, the weather is too rough. Searchers are eager to continue despite the fact the Bluefin's first mission surfaced early and turned up no new leads. The sub did scan the water for about 7-1/2 hours, but it had to resurface when it reached its maximum depth about 2-1/2 miles down.

Also this morning, the Malaysian government announcing it will set up an international investigation team to unravel the mystery surrounding Flight 370. Also, an oil slick sample found over the weekend is now heading back to Australia for testing.

Sumnima Udas is in Kuala Lumpur with more on this. Good morning.

SUMNIMA UDAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. That's right. A lot of questions being asked as to what exactly will happen to those black boxes if and when they are found. And the acting transport minister here in Malaysia saying that doesn't concern him who takes custody. His main goal is to find out the truth. Have a listen.

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HISHAMMUDDIN HUSSEIN, MALAYSIA'S ACTING TRANSPORT MINISTER: I don't think it's important who gets custody, as far as I'm concerned. It is finding out the truth and to find out the truth, definitely, with to have review what's in the black box. So, there's no question.

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UDAS: Now according to international protocol, it is the country to which the plane belongs to that takes ownership and leadership of the investigation in this case, of course, Malaysia, but the Malaysian police chief has already come out and said that they actually don't have the expertise to open that black box and to read that data. They will be looking for outside help. Remember, black boxes are made to withstand very extreme weather conditions like fire and rain and water. These black boxes have been deep inside the Indian Ocean for something like 40 days then one has to be very careful in opening that of those black boxes and retrieving that data. We know the U.S., the U.K. and Australia has the capability to do so, but who exactly the Malaysian authorities will be turning to help them read that data, that still unclear at the moment -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Sumnima Udas reporting live from Malaysia this morning. So let's talk about that and also about the latest underwater search. CNN aviation analyst and former Transportation Department inspector general, Mary Schiavo is here. Ocean search specialist, Rob McCallum is here too and CNN safety analyst and former FAA inspector, David Soucie, joins us as well.

Rob, I want to start with you. The Bluefin, this drone submarine had to scrap its mission on Monday because the water was too deep, but the Bluefin has to go to the bottom of the ocean to find anything, right?

ROB MCCALLUM, OCEAN SEARCH SPECIALIST: Well, it's designed to go to 4,500 meters, operational threshold, if you like. There are other AUVs that go to 6,000 meters and sonar arrays that go to 6,000 meters, but for Bluefin, 4500 is the operational limit.

COSTELLO: So as long as it got down to its programmed depth, it automatically turned around and went back up to the surface, right, Mary? Mary can't hear me. Can you hear me, Mary? No, she can't.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Yes, now I can. Yes. As soon as it did that it had to come back up because it needed additional instructions. It said, well, look, I have reached my operational limit, now what do I do? Basically went back up and said tell me more and fix me up and send me back down.

COSTELLO: And David, one of the problems, searchers, you know, on top of the water, they don't know the terrain at that depth in the ocean so sometimes they can't program that sub exactly right? Go ahead, David.

SOUCIE: As far as the programming goes, remember, this is an autonomous vehicle. And with an autonomous vehicle, it's got to make its own decisions while it's under the water, it's not like a robot, driving in it and you decide to move it. It has to make its up decision and so it's a matter of programming those decisions in for that particular environment.

COSTELLO: Rob, the weather is too rough right now for the Bluefin to go back under the water and this leaves searchers, you know, I guess wondering if this oil slick they found over the weekend came from the plane. That's what they are left with right now. That oil slick is being tested right now, but could this seriously turn into something?

MCCALLUM: It's incredibly unlikely. You know, at this stage of the search, we have to investigate every single possibility, but you have to remember that we think that the aircraft was almost out of fuel and so we would only be looking at hydraulic oil and perhaps the engine lubrication oil. And when you take oil to this kind of depth and you subject it to the pressure around the temperature that it will be subject to, it changes consistency and is unlikely to make it back to the surface and if it does, it's in such small quantities that it's unlikely to be detected. But it's got to be investigated.

COSTELLO: Yes, it does. Let's turn back to the investigation on land. Mary, the co-pilot has drawn renewed scrutiny once again because his cell phone was detected after that plane made the west turn. Now, there's no evidence he tried to make a call, but it is strange.

SCHIAVO: Well, it is. I mean, the FAA did a study a while back, and this is, of course, in the United States and it was before the FAA loosened the policy or -- allowed the airlines to loosen their policy on cell phones, but they found on every given flight, about 30 percent of the people probably left their cell phones on. Of course, they were studying it to make sure it had no effect on the safety of the flight of the airplane. So you know, this could be, you know, forgetting to turn your cell phone off.

It could be having a catastrophic problem on the plane and decreasing in altitude to try to get a cell phone tower and communicate or something nefarious. At this point, all we know is that the tower reached out to the cell phone and the cell phone to the tower and that's about it and where are the cell phones for the 238 other people on board? That's what I want to know.

COSTELLO: Exactly, David. Why weren't there -- I mean, passengers aren't that well behaved. I know that from personal experience.

SOUCIE: You know, I do, too. Mary and I talked about that this morning. So -- but with the cell phones, what confuses me a little bit is the fact that they -- what I think is happening here is they are getting focused on the pilots. That's what the investigation was. When you investigate one person or one investigation with one thought in mind, that's all you look at. So it's possible that they have just found this and that they haven't or that they have already ruled out those other 239 phones. So as Mary said, there's some more information here and as is typical with the information being released from the Malaysian government, we get pieces and parts, but we don't get whole stories.

COSTELLO: So Rob, the last question for you, so the search underwater appears to be quite frustrating. Is it more likely that we will find out more about what happened during this flight through the investigation on land, in your mind?

MCCALLUM: You know, I think both -- both aspects are very, very important. Everything to date out on the -- out on the sea, out at sea, has been informed by investigative work on land or up in the sky via satellite. So, you need to follow both of these strands in order to try to get to where we need to be. We need to keep analyzing the data that we have. We need to keep looking for new data that we might not have discovered yet. And over course, we need to focus our operations out on the -- out on the ocean where we think the aircraft might have ended up.

COSTELLO: Mary Schiavo, Rob McCallum, and David Soucie, thanks so much.

SOUCIE: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Actually, stay right there because I want to get to another angle we are covering. So don't go anywhere. And that would be the disappearance of Flight 370 teaching us that even large commercial aircraft filled with all kinds of technology can simply disappear, we know that first hand now, right?

Well, the FAA is in the middle of a massive undertaking to change the way planes are tracked in the sky and it announced the completion of a nationwide upgrade, which will allow air traffic controllers and pilots to follow planes with greater accuracy and reliability.

Aviation and government regulation correspondent, Rene Marsh is here to explain this more and then I will turn it over to our experts. Take it away, Rene.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, this upgrade, it is all part of what's called "Next Gen". It's been an ongoing effort for years. It's really meant to enhance and modernize our air travel system. Part of this initiative is a state-of-the-art satellite tracking system that allows air traffic controllers to track plane's every move even more accurately. We should say radar in the United States is very good. It updates the plane's position every 4.7 seconds.

However, this new satellite tracking would update the plane's position continuously. The other benefit is the satellite tracking system would work in situations where radar has limitations. For example, it can track planes over the Gulf of Mexico where you do not have radar coverage. But it -- the coverage is now with the disappearance of Flight 370, could this kind of technology essentially prevent a plane from disappearing?

Here is the thing. The plane's transponder would still need to be on. If it is off, the plane would still disappear. And as you know, already said that Flight 370's transponder was turned off -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So just to make it clear for our viewers, this new GPS system, just to simplify things, the FAA's requiring planes to have them by the year 2020, is that right?

MARSH: Right. So, here's the breakdown. We do know that some 100 air traffic controllers. They are already using the technology. In another five years, another 130 of the air traffic control towers will also be using it. And in another six years, all airplanes must have the equipment on board that would enable them to be tracked in this way, Carol. But again, the purpose of the upgrade isn't necessarily to prevent planes from disappearing like Flight 370. It's more so to make sure that air traffic control system is more efficient and prevent congestion in the skies -- Carol. COSTELLO: All right, Rene Marsh, thanks so much. I want to bring back our panel. So Mary, despite what Rene said, won't this help us keep better track of planes and why isn't it in place now?

SCHIAVO: Absolutely will help us keep better track of planes because remember, as we fly now and been flying literally since Orville and Wilbur, we fly on highways in the sky and basically planes have to get in line and air traffic controllers have to see them. "Next Gen" just gets rid of the highway in the sky and run air traffic control through a series of satellites that literally will circle the globe. The planes will talk to the satellite. The planes will talk to each other and they can perfectly sequence their traffic in a way that a human being couldn't even begin to do.

But everyone has to have this equipment. It's called ADSB. The system's costing $40 billion and the Office of Inspector General, my old office, says it is not going to be done until probably 2035. And then the airlines have to buy another $7 billion of equipment. Here's the rub. Congress and the FAA have not required all planes to have this equipment, only commercial service airplanes.

So, the whole point of this is to make seamless, accident-free travel, but we've got to make every plane have it and it will be additional equipment besides a transponder. It will be ADSB equipment. It's great stuff if we make it the law.

COSTELLO: If we make it the law, but David, isn't it worth the money?

SOUCIE: It's absolutely worth the money.

SCHIAVO: It's worth the money, sorry.

SOUCIE: It is definitely worth the money. Part of the rub, too is when Congress, a lot of that money, they did have a lot of controls on how it was to be spent or how it was to be managed. At this point, the FAA was, according to the General Accounting Office, 13 years behind schedule and $5 billion over budget. So Congress is now at a standstill with the FAA saying, well, you fix this and we will give you more money and the FAA says we can't fix it until we get more money.

They are at the stand still now. It is probably the biggest advancement in aviation history as far as safety and efficiency, airlines spend $15 billion a year more in fuel now than they will have to spend during the implementation of "Next Gen."

COSTELLO: Mary Schiavo, Rob McCallum, David Soucie, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the escalating crisis in Ukraine maybe a turning point. Ukrainian officials say their troops are heading east now. CNN's Phil Black is there. Good morning.

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. It looks like the Ukrainian government is getting ready to fight back. CNN team has seen a convoy of armored military vehicles heading into a region that has become a hot bed of separatism. We will have more on this after the break.

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COSTELLO: A bold cold war style act of aggression by Russia. A Russian fighter jet made a dozen close-range passes over U.S. warship in the Black Sea. In other words, the Russian buzzed a U.S. destroyer repeatedly. In the meantime, the White House is describing this incident and a phone call between President Obama and Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, as frank and direct. That was the phone call, they were describing that pass over by the U.S. jet as unprofessional.

Of course, all of this is happening as Ukraine sends troops to the eastern part of the country to tamp down on pro-Russia protesters. Let's bring in CNN's Phil Black. He is on the ground in Ukraine. We are also joined by CNN military analyst, General Spider Marks. Welcome to both of you.

MAJ. GENERAL JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RETIRED), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: Glad you're here. General, I want to start with you. So, that fighter jet buzzes an American warship 12 times. What do you think the reaction was on board that U.S. ship?

MARKS: Clearly on the U.S. ship, there was complete discipline. They have very strict rules of engagement and the Russian fighter maintained a certain attitude and approach that was not provocative. So the first rule of any military organization, whether it's a ship or forces on the ground, you have a right to protect yourself. The ship was able to gain good intelligence, just like the Russian ship was able to gain intelligence about the U.S. Navy presence in the Black Sea.

COSTELLO: What do you mean they were able to gain intelligence? What kind of intelligence?

MARKS: Well, you see what type armament they have. You see the type of reaction they get. They see whether they are -- they were lit up by their radar systems. So, it's a very precise dance that takes place. And let's be frank, this hasn't taken place in over 30 years. We haven't had a confrontation where we have looked at former Soviet, now Russian kilt, versus United States. So, it was an intelligence- gathering operation. But clearly, very, very provocative on the part of the Russians.

COSTELLO: Right. The Pentagon called it unprofessional. Was this sort of military taunting? Is that what this was?

MARKS: Sure. Well, I don't know -- taunting is not a military term. Clearly, it was provocative. But as I indicated, you do that to see what type of a reaction you're going to get. In this case, the Navy was spot-on, disciplined, had very restrictive rules of engagement, but were able to gather some intelligence.

COSTELLO: OK. I want to talk about what's happening on the ground in Eastern Ukraine right now and Phil Black is here to tell us. Phil, we just got this video into CNN. It's pictures of a pro-Russian politician. He is speaking in support of these pro-Russian protesters and you can see in here, yes, he is getting pelted with flour as he speaks to a crowd in Kiev, which is actually quite tame compared to the fact a Ukrainian convoy is on its way east as well. Are we at a turning point in Ukraine?

BLACK: Potentially. It certainly looks like the Ukrainian government is looking to appear to make good on what have, up until now, been threats about the use of force against the pro-Russian and separatist groups that have been occupying government buildings across the south and east of the country. The government has set deadlines. They have passed. Nothing has happened.

Now today, the Ukrainian government says that what it says is that anti-terror operation is beginning to take place in the south. Now, what does that mean? Our own CNN team in the south of the country has witnessed a convoy of armored Ukrainian military vehicles heading toward and around that region that has very much become the hot bed of this sort of dissent, where a lot of that occupation that control has been consolidated by these pro-Russian groups.

The intention of the Ukrainian forces isn't entirely clear just yet. Is this just a show of force to try to make some of these occupiers think twice about the buildings that they are claiming to be their own at the moment or is it just potentially the beginning of a more direct confrontation? There are no good moves for the Ukrainian military and government here in this.

Because to allow the status quo, that is to allow the continued erosion of the authority of the central government in Kiev. But to create a more direct confrontation where lives could be lost, blood spilled, that could give those Russian forces just across the border. The tens of thousands that NATO says are there, a possible pretext for intervening more directly in this region of Ukraine.

COSTELLO: Phil, I'm going to let you go your signal is unstable there. We got great information there. General Marks, I want to ask you one more question, so, this Russian jet buzzes the American warship and then President Putin requests a phone call with President Obama and he says, you know, you got to help me here, Ukraine, keep the peace. Mixed messages at best, right?

MARKS: Carol, this truly is a canard on the part of Putin to assume that the United States and to call on the United States to take a leading role to resist what's taking place based on Putin's provocations. Putin has the authority right now, around he has the power, more importantly, to pull those forces back from Eastern Ukraine, let's be frank with each other. These are Russian forces. This isn't organic. This isn't pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine. They certainly could have been whipped up, but they were whipped up by Russian forces.

So Putin needs to stop this activity and withdraw those forces. Look, he has already annexed Crimea. He saved Sevastopol. He has access to the Black Sea. He needs to pull out of Eastern Ukraine. Yet, we, NATO, don't have any Article V obligations with Ukraine and Putin knows that. He knows our hands are somewhat tied and gives him freedom of action we haven't about able to achieve.

COSTELLO: General Spider Marks, thanks for your insight. I appreciate it.

MARKS: Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a year after the deadly bombings at the Boston marathon, the city stops to remember as it continues to persevere.

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COSTELLO: It has been one year since the impossible happened in Boston. Terrorists struck the marathon, an event held peacefully and proudly for decades. And the seconds after those bombs went off, people risked their lives to help complete strangers and the days and weeks and months that followed, the city defined what it meant to be Boston strong, overcoming grueling physical and emotional injuries, and of course, rallying around their teams.

And their teams rallied around Boston. The World Series champion, Boston Red Sox, the Celtics and the Bruins. Today, Boston remembers the four people who lost their lives in the bombings and the police officer who lost his life as well, as well as the hundreds who were injured. There will also be a moment of silence at 2:49 Eastern Time, the time the first of those two bombs exploded at the race's finish line.

Joined now by Courtney Hollands, the senior lifestyle editor at "Boston" magazine. Welcome, Courtney.

COURTNEY HOLLANDS, "BOSTON" MAGAZINE: Thank you so much.

COSTELLO: I'm glad you're here. Last year after the attack, your magazine featured running shoes in the shape of a heart with the words "we will finish the race." The new cover simply spells out run with laces of a single shoe. Last year's cover touched so many people. What's the message you want to send with this year's cover?

HOLLANDS: Yeah, I think, you know, with last year's cover, we went out and we sought shoes from runners who had run that race and we did it all in about three days and this year, we knew that we had to have - we wanted a response or to be able to reflect on last year's events.