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Noah Sneider on MH-17 Crash Scene; Flights Re-Routed Around Eastern Ukraine

Aired July 18, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now, some of the population have obviously cleared out and we're told now by the United Nations relief agency that in the last 24 hours, since the Israeli ground invasion started, the number of displaced Gazan people has doubled. It has doubled last night. There are about 22,000 Gazans sleeping in U.N.- operated schools. And since the Israeli's came across the border, that number tonight, 40,000 Gazans sleeping in U.N.-sponsored schools, Brooke, because the Israelis now have boots on the ground on the Gaza Strip.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Karl Penhaul, we're watching, you're watching. We want to come back to you in a little bit and talk about the targets of the Israeli troops on the ground, need these flares to find the targets. We'll talk about what the targets are with you next.

Karl Penhaul in Gaza City.

Just ahead, some of the most haunting details in the crash of the Malaysia Airline jet are just everyday items found amid the wreckage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NOAH SNEIDER, JOURNALIST (voice-over): There' some suitcases and stuff in a pile along the road. One fighter was telling us that they had seen lots of headphones. That was the thing they noticed most. People had been flying, listening to music. They were watching movies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Listening to music and then the plane was shot down.

Next, we'll talk to someone who walked through the crash site. What he saw is incredibly powerful and heartbreaking, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just past the bottom of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Malaysia Airlines passenger flight 17 was shot down in the skies over eastern Ukraine. The real question now, who shot it down. MH-17 came to rest near a field of sunflowers. Look at this picture. A normally picturesque scene turned into a horrific nightmare. Mangled bodies, some still strapped into seats, scattered throughout the landscape. Charred pieces of the jet next to normal, everyday items you would take to board a plane. You see playing cards, a children's coloring book, Euros of every denomination, toothpaste boxes, lotion, a tourist guide to Bali, all meant for another final destinations. Some images are too graphic. We just cannot show you on CNN. One disturbing detail coming from the reports from the scene, some of the bodies on the ground were missing clothes, and even worse.

On the phone with me now, one of the first reporters there after this plane was shot down, freelance journalist, Noah Sneider. He joins me now on the phone.

You with me?

SNEIDER (voice-over): Hi there. Thanks for having me, yeah.

BALDWIN: Before we walk through the details of what you saw, the personal effects, what really jumped out at me, and disgusts me, if I may, is today you saw already looters at the scene.

SNEIDER: I actually didn't see any looters myself, to be completely honest. There were reports of a few sort of local, low-life types rummaging through suitcases. But my impression is that nobody has been touching these bodies, the bodies themselves, for the most part, because they're in such horrible condition that one simply wouldn't imagine laying hands on them.

BALDWIN: You yourself didn't see it, but again, reports of the looting through the suitcases, personal effects.

Can you just walk me through, Noah, the crash scene itself? First, with regard to these victims, with regard to the bodies, I read there are these tiny markers with white flags to mark each body. Can you describe that for me?

SNEIDER: Sure. The local rescue teams, and these are, you know, local emergency services who normally deal with mining disasters. This is a region known for its mining. Has been called into action here. And they basically have been traipsing through the fields the last 24 hours and attempting to mark the sites of the bodies. And as you mentioned, they're using little white -- pieces of white cotton tied to stakes, essentially. And that's as sophisticated as it gets so far. This morning, they had laid out maps and it seemed like they were going to attempt to plot the sites on the maps themselves. But the sense that there is a sophisticated operation going on is just not there.

BALDWIN: I know this is incredibly delicate, so let me just ask -- let me ask around this, in the sense that with these bodies, I mean, I've seen pictures that we're not showing in which you see the body still strapped in the seat of the plane, with the seatbelt fastened with individuals wearing headphones. Did you see some of that?

SNEIDER: Yeah, there's certainly plenty of passengers still strapped into their seats. And the whole place, as you mentioned, littered with these personal effects, especially prominent the headphones and, you know, tropical shorts, swim suits, sandals, things people would take to a beach vacation. And it's quite heartbreaking, as you look at some of these bodies and look at the faces, some of which are simply gone, and others of which are frozen in expressions of complete fear.

BALDWIN: What are some of those personal effects that you yourself saw? With your own eyes?

SNEIDER: You know, I was especially struck by toiletry kits, where you see just, you know, that one person used to shave, and another preferred a different brand. You just have these little tiny insights into folks' sort of most intimate lives that you wouldn't otherwise have. You have some suitcases on the scene kind of torn open with clothes hanging out. You have others that are completely destroyed. There's a lot of books, charred books in Dutch. There were a number of Dutch passengers on the plane. I found, at one point, printed out just a single sheet of -- top-10 travel tips for Bali, which is a destination that wasn't reached.

BALDWIN: 298 souls on that board -- on board that plane, and the issue, as we heard from the president, President Obama today and others, the need for these investigators, international and partial investigators, to be able to walk amongst the remains and collect evidence necessary. No evidence tampering. We have heard reports -- obviously, this is a pro-Russian rebel stronghold, this part of eastern Ukraine. And I'm curious what you saw as far as rebels in this area and not allowing other investigators in.

SNEIDER: Well, there are rebels in the area, and there have been rebels in the area for months now. They have been controlling this territory. And they were the first at the -- first authorities of any kind at the crash site. Small number of them spent the night and, it seems like there is -- as one commander told me, there's sort of three main groups of fighters who are working to guard the area. There's groups from nearby cities, and along with a group of Cossacks, not allowing citizens on to the site, but allowing journalists to work freely.

As far as investigators, part of the problem, that an investigative team hasn't really been formed yet. Nobody knows what that would look like, what its composition would be in terms of the nationalities of investigators involved. I'm told that a group from the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, visited the site later this afternoon. I am now down in Donetsk, so I didn't see it with my own eyes. But they supposedly attempted to access the site and had a bit of trouble with the Cossacks there. It will be a bit of a problem to negotiate -- to make up the investigators and access to the site.

BALDWIN: We also -- we were reporting, with these OSCE investigators, that there were shots fired up in the air, just to, you know -- you talk about -- this has been for months, this rebel stronghold there in eastern Ukraine, just to exemplify the tensions in the region, even, of course, after this plane has been shot down.

My final question is, it's difficult for us looking at these individual pictures on television or on the Internet to understand the scope, the magnitude, the sheer physicality of the downed plane. How large of an area is this there?

SNEIDER: It's several kilometers wide and I think people are still -- still discovering, as they walk through the surrounding villages and surrounding fields, the most bits of debris. Most of it is concentrated in these two fields, several kilometers radius. There seems to be kind of two concentrated -- two concentrated crash sites. The plane appears to have split, at least into two larger groups. There's, on one end of the field, a tail fin. And a number of bodies in that surrounding area. And further down the road, the sort of main fuselage appears to have come down along with engine rotors, and that area burned quite badly. And the plane had taken off on the -- a few hours before, still carrying quite a lot of fuel. So as you walk through there, the scent of airplane fuel is quite overwhelming. And there is sort of alloy from the body of the plane that's been melted and hardened into these sort of thin sheets along the ground. It's quite the sight.

BALDWIN: While you were just speaking, I just heard from my executive producer from the control room telling me that Christiane Amanpour has spoken with an OSCE official saying that the bodies, as we were discussing, the bodies there are all along this expansive crash site, are beginning to decompose, which makes me wonder, A, what of that did you see? B, one of the issues, talking to a correspondent of ours there in the region, saying that is a fairly rural area of eastern Ukraine, and the morgues will not be able to handle all of these victims.

SNEIDER: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's a big problem. And, you know, a lot of attention has been paid to the fate of the plane debris, for investigative purposes. But the fate of these bodies and especially for the families, this is just as important, if not more so. They have started to -- the flies have started to circle. We saw that a bit in the morning. It was raining this afternoon lightly, and it is in this sort of rural countryside area. As you said, the morgues simply don't have the technology or the capability to handle this. And another part of the problem, and some rebel leaders mentioned this today in Donetsk, is they don't have proper refrigeration. They don't have ways to secure the bodies. But they have been asked through back channels not to -- not to touch them until investigators can get to the scene. So it's a fight against the clock in the most gruesome of ways.

BALDWIN: Just the families, the families, the families.

Noah Sneider, thank you so much for calling into CNN. It's a gruesome scene to have to walk through and to cover, but we appreciate your reporting. Thank you so much for calling in from Donetsk, Ukraine.

Just ahead, it is hard to believe but Malaysia Airlines is flying the very same route today. And all of this as critics are wondering why would this plane be flying near a war zone in the first place? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Airlines all around the world are now re-routing flights around eastern Ukraine after flight 17, carrying nearly 300 people, was shot out of the sky 32,000 feet up in the air. And civil aviation officials had cautioned airlines, including Malaysian Air, from flying in air space surrounding Crimea. But Thursday's crash site was not within what was considered the restricted zone. But even with that said, one has to ask, why all the re-routing now? Should flights like MH-17 have been avoiding the volatile area anyway?

CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers has been tracking all these flights. And CNN aviation analyst, Les Abend, a 777 pilot, joining me, as well.

Chad, first to you.

I know this flight took a particular path that actually taken the past couple days. Can you show me?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Sure. This is part of the problem. And I think this is part of the mistaken identity problem, as well. This plane, and there are a number of interstates in the sky. You don't see them. It just looks like planes are going haphazardly. They are not. They are following airways, from one way point to the next.

Yesterday, there was a cluster of thunderstorms in the way of one of those airways. That's the "A" airway. This is the typical flight plan here. The day before that, it took the "B" airway through here and then the "C" airway where we were yesterday, much farther north. This looks like a lake, but that's 200 miles north of where the typical flight plan was. Down here, right here across Crimea.

Now, ironically, you talked about that restricted air space.

BALDWIN: Yeah.

MYERS: The restricted air space is where they usually fly. They don't typically fly up here. And this is where they ran into trouble, which is really kind of bizarre when it comes to it. But that's the thunderstorm activity in the way of that "A" flight plan. So they flew up to the north where the weather was going to be better. The weather wasn't amazing. There was still turbulence there and still thunderstorms there. But where they typically fly, through this red zone, this is the old red zone, where it has been for a long time. This is now the new red zone, the new notice to airmen up here. In fact, it's prohibited for any carriers to fly through that right now, at least. And I suspect that's going to continue.

BALDWIN: So, Les, as Chad pointed out, Richard Quest pointed out, this is a main highway if you're going from Europe to Asia, flying over this hot zone. And as we pointed out, this particular 777 actually flew through the restricted air space. But still, you wake up this morning and you see the papers, some are definitely blaming Malaysia Airlines for this. Is that fair?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST & 777 PILOT: I really don't think it's fair. Chad has an interesting theory about weather deviation. I get it. But the bottom line is they were on a cleared route. If they had to deviate from that route authorized by air traffic control. This was not a surprise to anybody. This was a civilian aircraft that's easily discernible through the transponder we have been talking about through the other tragedy in Malaysia, 370.

Look, I departed New York last night coming to London with every intention of getting here safely and returning home tomorrow night, as did this crew. So it's -- and I was filed on a clear route. And we actually had to deviate coming into London off of our route, because of that. Granted, it's coming into London, but it's the same situation. Air traffic control is air traffic control and they were on a cleared -- in a cleared situation.

(CROSSTALK)

MYERS: Brooke?

BALDWIN: Go ahead, Chad.

MYERS: Brooke, they were on 980. And that's exactly the flight plan that they filed before they took off. So that's completely correct. They were in the right place.

BALDWIN: Yeah. To Les' point, it was a cleared route.

But it gets you wondering, you know, OK, so this is a conflict zone. What other, Les, conflict regions are there in the world and do you think what happened yesterday will then impact flight paths moving forward? Will people go around areas? Will we have longer flights? You see where I'm going?

ABEND: I absolutely do. And I mean, we can't always secure every aspect of our air space from military activity and terrorist events. Who is to know that if indeed this was a surface-to-air missile that was capable --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: According to the president of the United States, it was.

ABEND: I don't want to dispute any of that intelligence. But if this indeed was, at 32,000 -- who would have conceived? My crew would have never conceived that would have been the end. Nor, would I. It's just -- it's very -- it's an inconceivable concept to me.

But, yes, in answer to your question, we will have to be more cautious about areas in turmoil and where we fly. And we're going to have to put more gas on the airplane.

BALDWIN: Sadly, it is perfectly conceivable now.

Chad Myers and Les Abend, thank you very much.

Much more on that breaking news.

Also, the fast-moving situation out of Gaza City. Flares popping up in the night sky at 10:00 at night over Gaza. Israel moving its tanks on the ground into Gaza. Are they gearing up for another assault? You're watching CNN special coverage. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Late morning, we heard from President Barack Obama acknowledging the lives lost on Malaysia Airlines flight 17. But at the very end, he also noted that there were dozens of advocates and researchers on board that plane, just about 100 of them. They were headed to this International Aids Conference in Australia. And President Obama said these were men and women who dedicated their lives to saving the lives of others, and they were taken by a senseless act of violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In this world today, we shouldn't forget that in the midst of conflict and killing, there are people like these. People who are focused on what can be built rather than what can be destroyed, people who are focused on how they can help people that they have never met, people who define themselves not by what makes them different from other people, but by the humanity that we hold in common.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And a Dutch AIDS scientists among the dead. Jep Lang spent more than 30 years fighting HIV and AIDS. His colleague tells Reuters, quote, "The HIV/AIDS movement has truly lost a giant."

Next, you will hear about the high tensions of the crash site where bodies are decomposing, that the tension investigators are feeling. Plus, one former CIA officer says that it's striking out at how

sophisticated these suspects were in this ambitious tactic of using a missile launcher to take this plane down.

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