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Air Disasters Fueling Fear Of Flying?; Israelis Reject Cease Fire Deal; ISIS Accused Of Destroying Iraq Holy Site; Hillary Clinton On Putin, Russia

Aired July 25, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Bottom of the hour, you're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Three aviation disasters happening in just one week. First, last Thursday, MH17 shot down in Ukraine. Then Wednesday, a plane crashing in Taiwan, and yesterday that Air Algerie Flight 5017 going down in the Northern Mali desert in Africa. Now all of these plane crashes so close to one another. Is it rattling nerves? We went to the airport to find out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN (voice-over): Business as usual at Atlanta's Hartsfield Jackson Airport this week. Travellers both domestic and international concerned about the news of the recent plane crashes but not letting it get in their way.

ERIN ELLIOTT, DOMESTIC TRAVELER: I thought about it for a second and sent my husband a message and said I hope I don't disappear on someone's radar. But I wasn't too anxious.

LISA EMRICH, DOMESTIC TRAVELER: Much faster way to get here than driving for sure and making sure that my daughter is safe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you feel about getting on a plane right now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not a problem for me.

BALDWIN: Some domestic travellers we talked to comfortable in the U.S. but concerned about flying overseas.

JANE COHEN, DOMESTIC TRAVELER: I was happy that it's a domestic flight. I do think a little bit differently about international flights.

BALDWIN: But even international travelers we found said they, too, felt fine.

JARRET, MICHAU, INTERNATIONAL TRAVELER: I felt pretty safe. Yes, I wasn't too nervous. Not going over any hostile territories.

BALDWIN: This man landing from Amsterdam, the airport MH17 departed from on the doomed flight. EURVIN VAKHARWALA, INTERNATIONAL TRAVELER: Safety is obviously a concern, but I think FAA does a great job and TSA is there to protect us too.

COHEN: I think statistically it's less dangerous than driving in my car.

BALDWIN: In fact, the odds of dying in a car crash for Americans are 1 in 5,000. The odds of dying in a plane crash are 1 in 11 million. There hasn't been a commercial airline fatality in the U.S. since the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 in early 2009. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 2 million Americans fly within the U.S. every day and approximately 30,000 flights.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, I have to trust God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You want to get from a to b, you have do it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: While some people feel pretty secure about flying, aviation safety analyst worldwide are on alert from possible missile strikes on airplanes. Let's bring in CNN's Tom Foreman in Washington -- Tom.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Brooke, this is one of those times when people are very nervous especially when they look at things like that plane that crashed in Mali, the most recent one we're talking about there. Of course, people were concerned that there has been an ongoing battle there between Islamic extremists and the government. That's been going on for months.

But, what people should really look at most there is just this. The big weather patterns. Let me bring this out and show you what was happening at the time that plane went down. Right in this area, all of that activity. That's why there's a lot of talk about a lightning strike, something like that bringing the plane down.

Same thing if you look at the one that happened off the coast of Taiwan. Here's the flight track right over there. That plane went down. But, again, as it went down, look at the weather around it at the time. This is the island area we're talking about. Huge bands of storms going through here as it tried to land. This was the edge of a typhoon system out there.

So in the end, if you look at crash stats, as much as we worry about these crashes and see things happen and maybe we see them happen together and we start thinking this is all part of some big horrible thing happening, in many ways it's just statistics. This is from Boeing. It shows the causes of fatal accidents for a recent ten-year period. This is the biggest group here. Loss of control of the aircraft.

And a big driving force in almost all of these is the weather in some fashion. Almost all is probably an overstatement. In many, many of them, the weather was a contributing factor. It makes a big difference. Of course, yes, in this day and time, you have to think about terrorism when a plane goes down, especially in a troubled area.

Yes, you have to think about equipment failure with an aging fleet out there. You have to think about inadequate training or people who are distracted in the cockpit. Above all else, think about this. In many, many cases, because weather continues to be one of the chief reasons planes go down. Always has been and as much as we make our planes safer and safer, Brooke, probably always will be.

BALDWIN: Tom Foreman, thank you so much. Coming up next, much more on the breaking news. Israel rejecting a cease-fire with Hamas. Secretary of State John Kerry moments ago in Cairo talking about the framework he proposed. We'll have that for you.

And Hillary Clinton sitting down with CNN sharing her thoughts on Vladimir Putin, including a private conversation the two had. Don't miss that.

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BALDWIN: Here's an update on the breaking news we have today out of Israel. The latest effort to stop the bloodshed and violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has officially hit a wall. Because Israel's cabinet unanimously rejecting this one-week temporary humanitarian cease-fire. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Egypt has been trying to broker this cease fire deal. Kerry says he is not giving up.

In an announcement just last hour in Egypt, Secretary Kerry said there is still some disagreement over terminology for a Gaza cease-fire, but said he is confident he has a basic framework that will ultimately succeed. But to the violence, anger over yesterday's attack on that U.N.-run sanctuary in Gaza prompted protests. Overnight and again today in the west bank, 16 people were killed in that blast. More than 200 injured.

Emotions are running high. Neither side accepts blame and CNN's Dan Rivers shows us how one hospital tries to cope with the dead, the injured, the grief-stricken and to warn you before you watch, some of the images you are about to see are pretty disturbing.

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DAN RIVERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They had come here seeking refuge, but today, the war came to their school. The playground peppered with shells. The results were devastating.

A few minutes later, we watched the first casualties arrive at the local hospital, child after bloody child. This boy reeling in shock as doctors lost the battle to save a member of his family. For more than 30 minutes, the ambulance crews flooded this tiny hospital with more and more victims.

(on camera): They are running out of room in this triage center as ambulance after ambulance has arrived with dozens of injured people including many children. (voice-over): One of the youngest, this six-month-old baby boy has shrapnel in his back. There's no time for anesthetic as doctors pluck out the shards of metal to make room for the next patient.

Nearby, the baby's father is hysterical. The father of six tells me his family was waiting in the school playground to be evacuated by the Red Cross when suddenly the shells rained down. He said his children were blown away like pieces of paper. Everywhere we looked, faces contorted in pain. Terrible, for many, it was too much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You want to tell me that this is the responsible thing? Is this a responsible thing to kill the children, the old women, the children? What?

RIVERS: The mayhem of this day will never be forgotten by these people. For many, the injuries will be life-changing. Agony too for those yet to live theirs. In the end, the injured children were being treated on floor so great they were in number. And most with the same injuries, shards of metal, lacerating their tiny bodies.

(on camera): How many children have been brought in?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So much.

RIVERS (voice-over): The price of this war is etched on each and every face here, staring blankly back in shock, the innocent victims of this relentless conflict.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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BALDWIN: ISIS militants are accused of destroying a revered holy site in Iraq's second largest city in Mosul. A video of this alleged explosion was posted on YouTube.

CNN cannot confirm the authenticity of this video, but civil defense officials say the terror group, ISIS planted explosives around the tomb of Jonah Thursday. This is located in Mosul's oldest mosque. The shrine is traditionally held to be the burial place of Jonah, the prophet. According to Islamic and Judeo Christian tradition was swallowed by a whale. ISIS has threatened to destroy any shrine it deems on Islamic.

Joining me now Candida Moss, a professor of New Testament in Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame. Candida, welcome.

CANDIDA MOSS, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME: Thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: So some people know the story of Jonah and the whale from the Bible. Jonah is saved from dying -- at sea. But as far as the tomb itself and this mosque, what's the significance?

MOSS: Yes, well, Jews, Christians and Muslims, Jonah is a prophet. For Christians in particular though, Jonah being followed and rescued from the whale is seen as sort of a prophecy of the death and resurrection of Jesus. So for Christians, in fact, they use Jonah and the image of Jonah coming out of the whale as a symbol of the resurrection long before they used crosses. It's a really important pilgrimage site.

BALDWIN: Because it's a significant site, this is also A, be seen as a direct assault on Christianity there. What would this mean for Christians in Iraq?

MOSS: That's exactly right. This seems to be part of a larger program to drive Christians out of Iraq. Also to sort of physically obliterate Christian history from the land of Iraq entirely.

BALDWIN: Why go after mosques?

MOSS: Well, the reason they've gone after a mosque, they said it was because it was a place that is -- the brand of Islam means that they see it as having a corrupting idolatrous influence on people. But I think we also have to see this as an attack on Christianity. Because long before there was a mosque on the side of the tomb of Jonah, there was a Christian church. This seems to be a direct attack on Christianity.

BALDWIN: You wrote an opinion piece for cnn.com and you wrote that this mosque was not the one holding the tomb of Jonah. Iraq says it was -- why do you say differently?

MOSS: Yes, my co-author and I, we argued that there is a Jewish tradition that Jonah actually was buried sort of slightly outside to the north of Nazareth, but it seems more likely that this is in a strictly speaking historical story. It's more sort of symbolic story about preaching the word of God and for Christians, it's an important story that embodies the idea of resurrection and salvation.

BALDWIN: And assaulting that notion there in Iraq by ISIS. Candida Moss, professor of New Testament in Early Christianity at Notre Dame, thank you very much for joining me.

And now to Hillary Clinton. She opened up with CNN with her views on Russia's President Vladimir Putin and writing her book "Hard Choices". CNN host, Fareed Zakaria, sat down with former U.S. secretary of state to get her latest observations. You can watch the whole interview, of course, on "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" this Sunday but here is a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": You say in the book that you felt and you've said in interviews subsequently that the reset with Russia worked because you got a new strategic arms treaty out of it. You got the Russians to agree to sanctions on Iran. Why do you think then that it stopped working? What changed?

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, I've thought a lot about that because I was among the most skeptical of Putin during the time that I was there in part because I thought he had never given up on his vision of bringing mother Russia back to the forefront. Forefront not by looking at what Russia could do to be a modern nation, but by looking to the past and especially trying to control their borders from Central Asia to the Baltics.

So when he announced in the fall of 2011 that he would be changing positions with Medvedev, I knew that he would be more difficult to deal with. He had been always the power behind Medvedev, but he had given Medvedev a lot of independence to do exactly what you said and make the reset a success.

I saw that firsthand with respect to the parliamentary elections in Russia because they were filled with irregularities and Russian people poured out into the streets to protest and I as secretary of state said the Russians deserve better. They deserve elections that reflected their will.

Putin attacked me personally because he is very worried about any kind of internal dissent. So he wanted to clamp down on any opposition within Russia and he wanted to provide more influence and even intimidation on his borders. And I, you know, certainly made my views known in meetings as well as in memos to the president.

I think that what may have happened is that both the United States and Europe were really hoping for the best from Putin as a returned president, and I think we've been quickly unfortunately disabused of those hopes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: That again just a snippet what you can watch Sunday "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS," 10:00 Eastern and Pacific and 1:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

Coming up, one of just the most difficult things to comprehend in the tragedy of Flight 17 is the loss of so many children. Coming up next, a letter written by parents who lost their kids, three of them, on that plane. They explain the unimaginable horror they are coping with. It is gut wrenching after the break.

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BALDWIN: Aside from the unspeakable horror of the shooting down of Malaysian Air Flight 17, a planeful of not just 298 people but moms and dads and aunts and uncles and sons and daughters living and breathing, many of them just children. Aside from that horror is the unimaginable loss felt by the loved ones, those 298 people left behind.

Pain put into words by the letter I'm about to read to you from Anthony Maslin and Marie Norris of Perth, Australia who lost their three children, ages 8, 10 and 12 and her father. So they wrote what I'm about to read for you to the soldiers in Ukraine, to the politicians, to the media and the couples' friends and family. Here we go.

They wrote this "Our pain is intense and relentless. We live in a hell beyond hell. Our babies are not here with us, we need to live with this act of horror every day and every moment for the rest of our lives. No one deserves what we are going through. Not even the people who shot our whole family out of the sky.

No hate in the world is as strong as the love we have for our children for Mo, for Evie, for Otis. No hate in the world is as strong as the love we have for Granddad Nick. No hate in the world is as strong as the love we have for each other. This is a revelation that gives us some comfort. We would ask everyone to remember this when you are making any decisions that affect us and the other victims of this horror.

So far, every moment since we arrived home, we've been surrounded by family and friends. We desperately pray that this continues because this expression of love is what is keeping us alive. We want to continue to know about your lives all the good and all the bad. We know longer have lives that we want to live by ourselves. So we'd like to think, take the chance to thank everyone, all our incredible friends, family and communities and to tell you all that we love you very much."

The words of parents who lost three little children and a father. Keeping them in our thoughts as we get into the weekend. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for joining me on this Friday. "THE LEAD" with Brianna Keilar starts right now.