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Flight Bound to Algeria Missing; Kerry Pushes for Mideast Cease-Fire; FAA Lifts Ban on Flights to Israel; Inmate's Execution Takes Almost Two Hours; Inmates Execution Takes Almost Two Hours; More Victims of Flight 17 Arriving Today; CNN Freelancer Abducted Tuesday, Still Missing

Aired July 24, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me this morning.

There is another aviation disaster unfolding. Searchers now scrambling to locate an Air Algerie flight with 116 people aboard. The twin engine jet vanished about an hour ago from its flight from Western Africa to the capital of Algeria on the northern coast.

A private Spanish company, Swift Air, operates the plane for Air Algerie.

CNN's Al Goodman is in Madrid to tell us more.

Good morning.

AL GOODMAN, CNN MADRID BUREAU CHIEF: Hi, Carol. We're getting more word on who was aboard that plane, those 116 the people, 110 passengers and six Spanish crew members, 10 nationalities involved, reportedly 50 French citizens, 24 from Burkina Faso, that's where the plane left from, five Canadians, and others from Africa and Europeans nations.

Now this plane has actually been missing for about 10 hours because it was an early morning predawn flight, leaving from Burkina Faso, its capital in the west of Africa, for what should have been a three or four-hour flight straight north to the capital of Algeria, but it went off the radar about -- the contact was lost about 50 minutes into the flight.

It was going Burkina Faso over Mali and into Algeria, according to the flight path that we've been told about. And it's somewhere possibly over Mali, according to reports, it lost contact. Again, as you mentioned, this was a Spanish company, Swift Air, right here in Madrid that has a fleet of airplanes and had some sort of charter or lease arrangement with Algeria's national air carrier, Air Algerie, on this MD-83 plane, that is right now missing, which has sent governments across Africa and Europe scrambling trying to find out what happened -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Al, was there bad weather in the area? GOODMAN: This is the report that the pilot requested a change of

route because of heavy storms which a pilot here in Madrid has just told us -- an Iberian pilot who just flew a very similar route on the weekend, he says storms at this time of the year in West Africa are very common. Communications from an airliner to the ground in the best of times are difficult. According to this Iberia pilot whom we just spoke with, those with the pilots union here in Madrid. So this appears to be the scenario that's playing out, is whether a possible change of course and then the plane was lost, according to reports -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Al Goodman, reporting live for us this morning.

Also a startling admission from a top pro-Russian rebel leader in Ukraine. In an exclusive interview with Reuters, that rebel commander confirmed that his fighters did instead have a BUK missile launchers. That's the anti-aircraft weapons believed to have brought down the Malaysian airliner with 298 civilians on board. And he says that missile launcher may have come from Russia, just as the United States suspects.

Here's his quote. "That BUK I know about, I heard about it, I think they sent it back. They probably sent it back in order to remove proof of its existence." The commander later said he was misquoted.

Also new this morning, Australia sending about 50 of its federal police officers to London, and their next stop could be the crash site in eastern Ukraine. That force could join an international deployment to secure the site and any evidence there.

Also in the next hour, dozens more of the victims are due to arrive in the Netherlands. Two planes are en route from Ukraine carrying some 74 coffins. Yesterday a National Day of Mourning, Dutch citizens lined the streets to pay somber tribute to the first 40 coffins to arrive back home. Most of the victims were from the Netherlands.

Secretary of State John Kerry is back in Cairo, Egypt this morning trying for a second time to end the bloodshed and broker a deal between Israel and Hamas.

Wolf Blitzer joins us live from Jerusalem.

Wolf, are they close?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: They're getting a little bit closer, but they're still not there. It's going to take a while. The Egyptians have been working on their proposal. They have a lot of influence in the region, the Palestinians in Gaza, Hamas, specifically. They want the Egyptians to open up that border between Gaza and Sinai. That's been sealed. They would like to see Israel ease some of the restrictions at the same time in order to stop the shelling, the rockets and missiles coming in from Gaza into Israel.

Israel says it's prepared for a cease-fire. Just wants those rockets and missiles to stop. The Hamas leadership, Khaled Mashaal, at a news conference in Doha, Qatar yesterday said they would like a humanitarian pause but they're not letting this simply stopped. They want some concessions at the same time. They have a whole set of grievances that they put forward.

Secretary of State John Kerry is working hard. He met with the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah yesterday, had a long two-hour meeting with -- with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He's meeting with the Egyptian leadership, he's speaking with the Qataris. Qatar is a very, very important player in this. They have a lot of influence with Hamas. They have good relations with Hamas, and Qatar most importantly, they have a lot of money that could help sweeten the pot in terms of easing the lifestyles, easing the restrictions on the Palestinians in Gaza.

Turkey is playing a role at the same time because the Turkish government has a good relationship with Hamas at the same time. So the United States doesn't talk to Hamas, so these other parties are doing some of the intermediary work. I'm hearing that they're making a little bit of progress. It's going to take a few more days. In the meantime the Israelis are trying to do as much damage to Hamas as they can, destroy those tunnels which go from Gaza into Israel, destroy those rocket launchers, those missile launchers.

Hamas at the same time is continuing to launch rockets and missiles into Israel. Indeed a whole barrage came into central Israel around Tel Aviv just a few hours ago. So it's a tense situation, very tense right now. There's a little bit of movement. We'll see if Secretary Kerry and the others can get the job done to achieve some sort of cease-fire.

COSTELLO: All right. Wolf Blitzer reporting live for us this morning.

U.S. flights coming in and out of Tel Aviv's airport have once again been given the go ahead by the FAA, the Europe air safety agency is following suit, clearing airlines to land in Israel at their own risk.

The question is, is all of this too soon? Is it too soon to lift the ban on flights into and out of Israel? This is what Martin Savidge saw in the skies over Ben Gurion Airport just moments before doing a live report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Wow. That was right over the airport.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Yes, that rocket was headed toward the airport. It was intercepted by Israel's famed Iron Dome, the very same kind of rocket that prompted the FAA to tell airlines to stay away from Israel's main airport earlier this week.

Martin Savidge joins us from Tel Aviv to tell us more.

Hi, Martin. SAVIDGE: Hey, Carol. Yes, the good news is that there were no

rockets that struck anywhere on the ground of Ben Gurion Airport, certainly no reports of injury or damage, but, you know, the real question is going to be -- and I'm sure the Israelis are worried that those airlines still have yet to decide, of course, the FAA clears it, but the airlines haven't decided, and that is not going to help.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE (voice-over): Overnight the FAA reversing its controversial travel ban, removing restrictions on U.S. passenger planes flying to and from Tel Aviv. In the face of mounting criticism. The decision coming 1 1/2 days after flights were suspended due to security concerns. When a rocket destroyed a home a mile from Ben Gurion Airport. Warning sirens prompting this frantic scene later in the day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole airport rushed into the bomb shelters and it was terrifying.

SAVIDGE: According to a statement the FAA says it worked with the U.S. government to assess the security situation in Israel and review both significant and new information and measures the government of Israel is taking to mitigate potential risks to civil aviation.

Since the ban was enacted, Israeli officials have lobbied the U.S. government to reverse its decision, insisting that airport is safe.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We protect this airport. There's no reason whatsoever for the mistaken FAA decision to instruct American planes not to come here.

SAVIDGE: While Hamas continued to tout the decision as a great achievement, saying, "Isolating Israel from the world is a great victory for the resistance and a destruction of the enemy's dignity."

Earlier Wednesday former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the ban a mistake in a conversation with CNN's Wolf Blitzer after traveling to Israel in a show of support.

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, FORMER NEW YORK MAYOR: We have to take reasonable precautions, but you cannot shut down everything just because one terrorist someplace on the other side of the world says, I'm going to be a threat.

SAVIDGE: Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to the region on a military jet Wednesday to press ahead with cease-fire talks with both sides. As the death toll on both sides of the conflict continues to grow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: Just announced that it will be resuming service back here to Tel Aviv. That will certainly be welcomed by the Israeli government. Yet to be heard from are the other U.S. carriers. And the other thing that should be pointed out is that even if the

planes come, it will be sometime before they arrive. You have to work out the schedule once more. And then the next question, how many people will actually be on board? It's peak tourist season, but not many tourists feel this is the right time to come -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Martin Savidge, reporting live, and I know Martin's shot broke up a little bit. In case you didn't hear him, United has decided to follow the FAA and allows flights into and out of the Israel. We're yet to hear from Delta and U.S. Air. When we do, we'll pass the information along. But again, United has decided to resume flights into and out of Israel.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the execution of a double murderer takes nearly two hours in Arizona. Witnesses says he gasped -- he gasped for air more than 633 times. Now the governor of Arizona is launching an investigation.

Poppy Harlow has more for us.

Hi, Poppy.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, good morning, Carol. Well, the fact that that execution took nearly two hours is central in this debate that has been reignited over the mix of drugs used in lethal injection. However, the victims' family members are outraged, saying think about the pain and suffering you caused our loved ones when you murdered them and the pain and suffering we're still going through.

That's next.

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COSTELLO: The death penalty and the way we execute killers is open for debate again. A convicted killer Joseph Wood died nearly two hours after the start of his execution in Arizona. Witnesses say he gasped for air more than 600 times.

Wood, who was convicted of shooting his ex-girlfriend and her father in 1989, was given a two-drug cocktail. Witnesses say it took so long for Wood to die his lawyers actually had time to petition the Arizona Supreme Court for a stay of execution.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL KIEFER, REPORTER, ARIZONA REPUBLIC: I counted about 660 times when he sort of gasped, kind of looked like as if he was trying to breathe or catch air.

TROY HAYDEN, REPORTER, KSAZ: Joe Wood is dead, but it took him two hours to die. And to watch a man lay there for an hour and 40 minutes gulping air, I kind of liken it to, if you catch a fish and throw it on the shore, the way the fish opens and closes his mouth.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Poppy Harlow is live for us this morning to tell us more.

Good morning.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Carol.

Well, you know, despite going for a review of the process, Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer is standing by this execution. She's calling it lawful. She said that it was, quote, "justice was carried out," but she also importantly noted the excruciating suffering that Wood's victims endured in this double murder.

However, this latest execution that just happened yesterday, it is adding to that debate over what drugs are being used in lethal injections.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You hear a deep snoring sucking air sound.

HARLOW (voice-over): That's how some witnesses are describing the execution of convicted murderer Joseph Wood. Wood was convicted of a double murder in 1989 for killing his estranged girlfriend and her father.

HAYDEN: Joe Wood is dead, but it took him two hours to die.

HARLOW: Woods attorney filed an emergency appeal and reportedly called Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in an attempt to stop the execution, and stating that the process violated Wood's constitutional right to be executed without cruel and unusual punishment.

DALE BAICH, ATTORNEY FOR JOSEPH WOOD: If the execution isn't bungled, there's no need to go in and ask the courts to intervene.

HARLOW: But there was a very different account of what happened from the woman whose father and sister were murdered by Wood.

JEANNE BROWN, DAUGHTER AND SISTER OF WOOD'S VICTIMS: I don't believe he was gasping for air, I don't believe he was suffering. It sounded to me as though he was snoring. You don't know what excruciating is.

What's excruciating is, seeing your dad lying there in a pool of blood, seeing your sister lying there in a pool of blood. That's excruciating.

This man deserved it.

HARLOW: Earlier this year, Oklahoma halted all executions after what some called the botched execution of convicted murderer and rapist Clayton Lockett. One of the drugs used in that execution was also used in Wood's.

The Arizona Department of Corrections denies any claims of wrongdoing saying in a statement that the department, quote, "followed the execution protocol," but adding that the department would conduct a full preview. But for the family of Wood's victims, the debate over drugs stirs up deep feelings.

RICHARD BROWN, SON AND BROTHER-IN-LAW OF WOOD'S VICTIMS: I saw the life go out of my sister in-law's eyes right in front of me, as he shot her to death. I'm so sick and tired of you guys blowing this drugs stuff out of proportion, because to me, that's B.S.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Very important points to make from the victims' family.

Carol, the background is, as you know, a number of states in this country with the death penalty have really been left scrambling to try to find alternatives to a key drug that's been used in the past in lethal injection cocktails after a sole U.S. manufacturer, the only one in this country that made that drug stopped producing it in recent years. And other countries outside the U.S. that make the drug banned the import of it into the United States because of their objections to the death penalty, but this brings up that question of the drugs being used in these executions, Carol.

COSTELLO: Because as sad as it is, as hard and difficult to understand, our Constitution requires you have to kill someone humanely, if that's even possible. It's in our Constitution.

HARLOW: Right, it is, and you listen to these family members. You heard them. They are in such pain as well. So it is this predicament. They're saying why this debate? What about our pain and suffering?

But this continues from Oklahoma now to Arizona. I mean, this is really forefront right now.

COSTELLO: Poppy Harlow, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a second day of mourning for families of victims aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Dozens more coffins are said to arrive in the Netherlands. And forensic investigation now under way to try to identify those who died. We'll take you live to the Netherlands, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Another somber day for families who lost loved ones aboard Flight 17. Seventy more coffins carrying the victims will be flown by military plane to the Netherlands today for forensic analysis.

Saima Mohsin is live on the phone for us from Eindhoven.

Tell us more, Saima.

SAIMA MOHSIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Carol, I'm once again on the tarmac where we're expecting those two military plane, a Dutch plane and Australian military aircraft C-130 and C-17, to land within the next hour. We'll see something similar to what we saw yesterday. They will land

to the sound of a trumpet call from the military, and then a one- minute silence once again a mark of respect, a symbol of restoring their dignity. The families and loved once, and, of course, the bodies of those passengers on board MH17 have been through incredible trauma over the past week or so. It is a week to the day since MH17 left Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, crashing on the edge of Ukraine.

Carol, I should tell you right now where I'm standing, there are no dignitaries here just yet. We are seeing the seats being lined up. The king and queen and Dutch prime minister, as you know, were here yesterday. But today, we believe in ministers will be here and dignitaries from various embassies will be invited, but the only sound we have here right now is the rattling of these flags which are flying at half-mast -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Saima Mohsin reporting live from the Netherlands this morning.

A bit of breaking news to pass along to you. A CNN freelance journalist has been detained in Eastern Ukraine. Anton Skiba was detained, although we don't quite know why.

So, let's head out to Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine and check in with Ivan Watson.

Ivan, tell us about this. Why was he detained?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: OK, this took place 48 hours ago just outside the hotel where I'm standing in rebel- controlled Donetsk, when my colleague Phil Black was returning with his team from a day of reporting at the crash site of Malaysian Airlines. It appeared there were a group of gunmen and a senior official from the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic who were waiting for our arriving team.

They approached the team and asked about what we describe in the business as the fixer, basically a translator, a Ukrainian local named Anton Skiba, who had been working for us for one day. He was on the spot accused of having posted ransom, rewards for the death of rebel fighters on his Facebook page, and he was abruptly taken away.

Skiba did not resist as he was taken away. He has since been in the custody, we believe, of the separatists for almost 48 hours.

Now, CNN has not reported on his detention thus far, because we were working behind the scenes with separatist officials trying to secure this young man's release, who only worked with us for one day. He had also worked with the BBC here in the wake of the crash of Malaysian Air Flight 17. We've confirmed that he also worked for a Moscow-based newsmagazine called "Russia Reporter" last year as a photographer.

The accusations against him have evolved during his detention. The deputy prime minister in charge of industry, who led the detention on Tuesday evening, later in the evening told me that he was being detained not because of his Facebook posts, but because he had different forms of identification with different last names on them.

We have not gotten any response from the separatist officials today, Thursday, any update on Anton Skiba's welfare. In the meantime, a number of human rights organization and press freedom organizations, including Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the OSCE, which has international monitors on the ground here, have all demanded for Skiba's immediate release and are worried for the deteriorating environment for journalists operating in this war zone -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So evolving allegations, are any of them remotely true?

WATSON: We had a very short relationship with Anton Skiba. We worked with him for one day. He worked as a translator and worked professionally.

The other news organization we have spoken to, they said also he seemed to work as a translator basically, a local guide on the scene in what is an increasingly tense environment here, as battles have been taking place just about 5, 10 miles away from where I'm standing right now. The death toll growing, civilians killed on the outskirts of this city earlier this week.

So, it is arguably a tense environment, but at the same time seeing a colleague basically dragged away in front of us by gunmen who accused him of being a terrorist, without really supplying in any evidence and then not really providing any updates on this man's welfare, that is of extreme concern.

And the Committee to Protect Journalists has pointed out that at least 10 people, foreign journalists have been detained at least briefly by separatists in the wake of the downing of Malaysian Air Flight 17. Also Tuesday night, a British reporter for the Moscow-based organization television network Russia Today has gone missing while trying to report on some of the shooting, and a cameraman from the ANNA News Agency has also gone missing.

So, it's an increasingly tense environment. Reporters who are trying to report on this are having an increasingly difficult time.

Anton Skiba called us on Wednesday very briefly to say he was OK, he was being questioned in the custody of the separatist security services, and then that call was abruptly cut off. We do not know whether that call was made under duress.

COSTELLO: Well, Ivan, you stay safe. And thanks for filling us in. I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM: children in Gaza are dying at a rate of one per hour. Up next: a report on how the young and innocent are losing their lives at a rate far greater than Hamas fighters.

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