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New Info Emerges on Russian Plane Crash. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 06, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: And they can identify it, because, if the plane was just flying along and something went wrong, it would be several minutes before the plane fell out the sky.

Even if there was a catastrophic failure of the airplane, it wouldn't just be that...

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: So, it's...

QUEST: So, it's that nature of that suddenness and that split-second that you hear on the CVR and the FDR beforehand that you can now start to say we can analyze that backwards.

BALDWIN: So, this is hard data, Paul, that we're now hearing again from France too, from the investigators who have been looking at this on the ground that is jibing with what we have been hearing from our own reporting, Barbara Starr and others, what they have been getting from U.S. intelligence and also from the Brits.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Absolutely.

Now we're seeing a confluence between the intelligence picture, the chatter, the intercepted communications of ISIS in Sinai and what they are hearing on the black boxes. Both suggest bomb at this point. Both suggest a terrorist attack. This would be the most significant terrorist attack since 9/11. I think we're going far along in that hypothesis at this point.

BALDWIN: Let's remind people. We talked about this yesterday. Remind people, some our reporting, it's the specificity of the chatter. Right? It was an uptick in chatter specifically in the Sinai. We knew there were fears of extremism for a long, long time, but it was really after this happened.

I was talking to Evan Perez, our justice correspondent, about this yesterday. There was bragging, bragging about this. Why is all that significant?

CRUICKSHANK: It's exactly what you expect a terrorist group like perhaps ISIS in Sinai to do if they just had this huge success. They would be very, very excited about it and they would want to tell each other about it, tell each other perhaps a few of the details of how they did it. I think some of the specifics of the intelligence about an insider at

the airport putting the bomb potentially directly in the cargo hold, that all appears to come from those intercepted communications, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Fred Pleitgen, let me bring in you in live in London, because the other piece that we're learning, the U.S. and the U.K. have now shared their intelligence with Russia. That is before Putin made the decision to suspend Russian flights between Russia and Egypt.

How significant is it that those three parties are sharing information?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's very significant that they are. It clear shows that the U.S. and the U.K. are willing to set aside any sort of political differences that these three countries have over, for instance, the war in Syria, over, for instance, the situation in Ukraine and have come to the conclusion that of course in this case they need to share intelligence.

Of course, one of the things that we have heard from the BBC here in the United Kingdom is that they are reporting that apparently the British intelligence community is more and more coming to the conclusion that a bomb would probably have been put in the cargo hold of the plane.

It's interesting when you see today the Russians after that intelligence was shared. They themselves are pretty much adopting the same measures that Britain did as well as far as these repatriation flights are concerned. The Russians are also stopping flights. They are trying to get people back.

But people that are going to fly back from Sinai to Russia are only going to be allowed to take carry-on luggage, no luggage in the cargo hold. So, clearly, at this point in time, it's that that they are zeroing in on, that there was probably an explosive device placed inside the cargo hold if in fact this plane was brought down by a bomb.

And you can clearly see how all these countries are adopting the same measures after that intelligence was shared. So, politically, this is something that's very significant, that despite all of the international political differences that these countries have, as far as this is concerned, when it comes to an issue like this, they still are capable of working together. And then of course it also seems as though they very much are in line with the measures they are adopting to try and get their people back home in a safe way, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Fred, thank you, Fred Pleitgen in London.

Richard Quest, so now as it pertains to the investigation with this news from the European investigators, what next?

QUEST: Two things.

Besides any questions of national security or geopolitical issues of retaliation and the like, from a purely aviation standpoint, how did they do it? And how can we prevent it happening again? It sounds rather basic, but now you really have got to go right into Sharm el- Sheikh, discover how it was done.

Was it a systemic failure of aviation security or was this a form of bribery of one or two people or something in Sharm? Even if it was in Sharm, just a single isolated person, how do you prevent that happening again in another airport where somebody could be corrupted?

We're not talking here about major international airports. You're talking about sometimes airports where you can corrupt one or two people or ideologically they are on board with you. That's going to be very difficult. If you can't do that, if you can't secure that sort of environment, then you either have to pull out the planes or create a different rubric by which they fly.

You bring more security in with the aircraft. You quarantine the aircraft when it lands. You don't let people put hand -- hold luggage on. You have to completely rethink the architecture of aviation for those airports that may be at risk.

[15:05:10]

BALDWIN: If this was ISIS, and again I say if, big, bold if, why Sharm?

CRUICKSHANK: That's where ISIS in Sinai has a presence, in the Sinai Peninsula, so it would have been an opportunity for them over there.

Perhaps they just managed to recruit somebody at the airport. This is a group that has a track record for recruiting Egyptian military, Egyptian police and they launched an attack in January 2014 on a headquarters security building in Cairo where they actually managed to get insider information from a police colonel.

So not a stretch to believe that they could have recruited somebody at the airport. One of the explanations of why they have been so coy in their statements may be to protect a mole at the airport.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Because the question is, then, obviously, forget the future and how they -- obviously, that's important how to protect people in future flights, but what about the person right now, possibly this insider who did this? How do they find that person?

CRUICKSHANK: Have they got away? Have they had time to get away? That will be a sort of very interesting question. Are they potentially riding this out, that they're still there?

BALDWIN: Are they still there?

CRUICKSHANK: You have got to believe that they would try and get away after a successful attack like this, perhaps try and reach the group in its headquarters in the northern part of Sinai.

But as Richard was saying, a lot of concern now that there could be other insiders at other airports in the Middle East.

BALDWIN: That's a good point.

CRUICKSHANK: This is exactly what ISIS wants, a lot of fear, people not flying to the region, economic repercussions, unemployment then going up and an even more fertile environment for them to recruit even more operatives.

QUEST: You're talking about Sharm el-Sheikh, which has been the only bright spot in the Egyptian tourism city along with the Nile, but particularly Sharm, that is absolutely just going to be decimated now in terms of the tourism industry.

It will come back. The history of all tourism shows it does come back. But the damage is going to be deep and it's going to be long- lasting. That will take its toll on an Egyptian economy that was about to see record numbers of tourism this year.

BALDWIN: So it's the ramifications there in Egypt and Sharm specifically, but also there are other airliners, a lot of what -- what do we say, five different British airlines flying in and out every day? This could have been others who would have been targeted. This was a Russian passenger plane.

CRUICKSHANK: They could have gone after any one of those British jets if they had an insider at the airport probably and they specifically chose a Russian jet. Why did they do that, if that's the case?

Because the Russians are hitting ISIS to a certain degree in Syria, yes, but much more importantly because ISIS realizes that because there's so much anger in Sunni Muslim world against Russia right now for supporting the Assad regime with all these strikes in Syria, that they are going to get a huge boost from launching a successful attack.

Their standing popularity in the jihadi movement is going to rocket up. It's going to help them in their competition with al Qaeda. Yet more foreign fighters potentially are going to come to Syria and join their ranks. This group status in Egypt now is going to go through the roof if they really were responsible for this as well. They could get more recruits. There's also next door in Libya another ISIS affiliate.

This is extremely worrying.

QUEST: And then you have the -- to interrupt you, if I may, and then you have the awfulness of whether the video that's out there online that we're not showing, whether this video purportedly showing, whether it's genuine or not. We have turned another corner. Another Rubicon has been crossed.

BALDWIN: As you say, the most significant terrorist attack since 9/11. Richard Quest, thank you. Paul Cruickshank, thank you so, so much.

We're going to stay on this breaking story, of course. When we come back, we will bring in the retired FBI agent who led the U.S. investigation into the Lockerbie bombing, what that incident can really teach us about this downed Russian aircraft.

Stay with me. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:13:35]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: All right, here we go, back with our breaking news. I'm Brooke Baldwin here.

This is what we're getting now on this downed Russian passenger plane over Egypt. This was not an accident. We're getting this information now in from a CNN affiliate, France 2, citing European investigators on the ground. That's why this is significant here. This is jibing with what we have heard from both U.S. and U.K. intelligence.

This is what we have from these investigators, that the black boxes from this plane have been examined and what they reveal is incredibly significant here. It reveals sound of an explosion heard from the cockpit on board this Metrojet aircraft before it crashed into Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula.

While an examination of the flight data recorder shows no sign of mechanical malfunction, of course all of this back up the suspicions and some of the intelligence, as I mentioned a moment ago, that we have been hearing from both the U.S. and U.K. that someone somehow got a bomb on this plane, and taking it a step further from U.S. intelligence, that it was, in fact, either ISIS or an ISIS affiliate.

I have with me a new really great voice, Dick Marquise, retired FBI agent and former head of the U.S. government's investigation of the bombing of Pan Am 103. Les Abend is with now, 777 pilot, CNN aviation analyst, and contributing editor for "Flying magazine. CNN senior international correspondent Matthew Chance is with me as well. And Richard Quest is in the building as well, CNN aviation correspondent. And Paul Cruickshank is with me, CNN terrorism analyst.

[15:15:05]

So there we go.

Dick, let me just go to you first. As an investigator into Pan Am 103, when you hear about the details now that they have the black boxes, they have cockpit voice recorder, flight data recorder and the info they can get from that, you didn't have any of that when it came to Lockerbie and when it came to this plane. You just went by forensics. Totally different.

DICK MARQUISE, FORMER FBI AGENT: Well, about five days after the plane crashed, investigators found fragments of the baggage container that had remnants of chemicals known as RDX and PETN, which was components of Semtex, a Czech-made plastic explosive. The black boxes didn't reveal much other than everything just shut

down immediately about three minutes after 7:00 on December 21. But the investigation which literally lasted about three years until the indictments was led primarily by the forensics, which included the recovery of clothing, suitcase, components of a radio, et cetera. That's how we ended up solving the case.

BALDWIN: When you talk about that substance and it took ultimately the investigation three years, how long will it take investigators in this scenario to know without a shadow of a doubt what took this plane down?

MARQUISE: When I look at the pictures that I have seen, if you remember the signature of Lockerbie, which was the cockpit, the bomb contained in a baggage container at the very front of the airplane, which blew the cockpit off the plane.

The pictures I have seen in Sharm el-Sheikh appear that the fragment that you can see there is the tail of the airplane. And the tail of the airplane, to me, indicates that perhaps if it was a bomb it was contained at the back part of the aircraft.

Investigators have got a lot of work to do. They have got to collect all the fragments at the scene. I saw that the crime scene there was something like -- I think it was 40 square kilometers, whereas Lockerbie was over 2,000 square kilometers, very large crime scene. They have got a lot of work to do.

But they do have a lot more advantages today. I'm sure there's going to be video recordings at the Sharm el-Sheikh Airport. Hopefully, there will be that will give them some indications about what happened around that aircraft prior to it leaving the tarmac.

BALDWIN: Dick, stay with me.

Les, let me bring more into this conversation. And let's get down to specifics as far as what we're hearing from the investigators. When we talk about the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, these two boxes they have, what exactly did they find to lead them to this conclusion that this was not accidental?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, with the cockpit voice recorder, they obviously heard the sound of an explosion or they matched it with some other audible similar type situation forensically.

Chances are in this period of time, I don't know if they got to that. But certainly, the digital flight data recorder, my understanding, was on for 24 seconds after this explosion.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Everything is fine during the first 24 minutes. Then, in a fraction of a second, it's a blackout, no parameters, no more conversation, and that's why investigators think there was a bomb. ABEND: Well, there's more -- there must have been more data

transmitted at least some period after the explosion that wouldn't make sense on a normal flight.

In other words, you have an explosion, the airplane descends very rapidly. If you looked at the Flightradar data 24, if you go through that, we're talking thousands of a second how quickly things changed. Vertical speed, it was basically on the way down until it got to 26,000 feet a minute, according to that data. So, some of that may have been part of the digital flight data recorder data for a very brief period of time.

BALDWIN: Why not some sort of malfunction leading to some sort of explosion vs. a bomb specifically?

ABEND: That's a very good question. And I think we still should get the forensic evidence that will be on the scene in the field investigation.

And I'm hoping. We have not got communication, zip, period, from the Egyptian crash investigators who are leading this investigation. There's been no press releases. There's been absolutely nothing, which is disturbing to me. I don't know why they are keeping it so close to the vest.

Of course, Paul may have some answers there, but the bottom line is that information should be a little bit more forthcoming.

BALDWIN: Actually, on that, let me jump to Matthew Chance, who is standing by.

ABEND: Sure.

BALDWIN: Because in terms of information sharing, at least we do now know that, Matthew, that the U.K. and the U.S. have been sharing information with Russia, because we know that Putin has come out today and he says no more planes in and out between Russia and Egypt.

Yes, so that is significant, number one.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it is. Yes.

The Kremlin have confirmed that, in their words, certain information has been shared with Russia by the United States and United Kingdom. But they have not explicitly said what that intelligence was, nor have they stated categorically, the Kremlin, at this point that they believe this was a bomb that blew the Metrojet airliner out of the sky and killed all 224 people on board.

[15:20:05]

But they have done something which the Kremlin very rarely does, which is carry out a U-turn on their policy. Just yesterday, they were saying, we have to wait until the outcome of the investigation. The investigation could take months, as your previous guest was saying, to get to its conclusion.

Today, they have had information from the U.S. and the United Kingdom. They have stopped these flights. They have suspended all flights to Egypt from immediate effect. And so it's a complete about-face by the Kremlin, almost acknowledging that this was something catastrophic in terms of a bomb that caused so many deaths.

BALDWIN: So, Paul, to Matthew's point, total about-face, U-turn, to use his words. What's next? What's Putin's next move?

CRUICKSHANK: What may be next, tomorrow morning, the Egyptians have said they are going to hold a press conference, a major announcement coming at 10:00 a.m. Eastern tomorrow in a press conference in Egypt.

So that may be a very significant announcement as part of the investigation. But for the Russian point of view, if this is confirmed, I think we can expect an extremely muscular response. This has really traumatized Russia, so many young families killed in this, what may be this terrible attack above the skies of Egypt.

So all options will be on the table in terms of going after ISIS. In Syria right now, 90 percent of Russian strikes are not going after ISIS. They are going after other rebel groups. That could change. There could be many more strikes against ISIS. There could be like a shock and awe against a place like Raqqa.

And they will also be looking at the Sinai, whether they might want to target a group there that appears to be the one that was responsible for what is increasingly clear looks like to be a terrorist attack.

BALDWIN: Paul Cruickshank, Les Abend, Dick Marquise, Matthew Chance, thank you all.

Stand by. Much more on this breaking story here, as we're hearing from France to our CNN affiliate, according to investigators there on the ground, that this indeed was no accident based upon what they have gotten from these black boxes, this explosion not accidental. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:26:19]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: If you are just now joining us, I have got some huge, huge news from these European investigators who have been looking into and been on the ground investigating this plane that clearly exploded over the skies of Sharm el-Sheikh, this resort town on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.

As we have been reporting from CNN's reporting the last couple days, U.K. and U.S. intelligence pointing to the fact this was no accident, that this was a bomb and specifically U.S. intelligence indicating it was a bomb placed on that plane from either ISIS or an ISIS affiliate there. Taking it one step further, that is corroborating with what we're hearing from our CNN affiliate France 2 that these European investigators who have been looking at these two black boxes, the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, and they have found confirming that explosion is not accidental, that there's not any sign of mechanical malfunction during the first minutes of flight.

Apparently, just going into specifics, everything is fine during the first 24 minutes. And then, in a fraction of a second, it's a blackout, no parameters, no conversation, and now investigators are convinced there was a bomb on board that plane.

I have with me Les Abend, Dick Marquise, Buck Sexton, new voice we have added here, and we will also speak Nima Elbagir, who is standing outside of Sharm el-Sheikh Airport, who can talk about those tourists who want to get out of there.

But first, Dick, let me move back to you as you were the lead investigator in the bombing of Pan Am 103, retired FBI agent. We talked a little bit about the forensics, the data from the black boxes, but what about the person who was responsible for this?

When you read the BBC reports, they are indicating it would be an inside job, possibly placing the bomb on -- in the cargo of the plane. How do they find that person?

MARQUISE: Well, the theory we had at Lockerbie was that somebody had to have gotten the bag on the airplane and it turned out it was in -- on the island of Malta and it was an inside person working at Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta.

I would say the same thing probably would be true in Sharm el-Sheikh. It would probably be somebody in the baggage system, somebody that worked at the airport because today most bags that go into the cargo holds of airplanes are screened. They examine them for explosives, something they didn't always do 27 years ago.

But I think that that's the first -- they need to look at everybody who touched that airplane, everybody who touched that luggage, do an investigation, similar to what they did in the Malaysian Air crash, the disappearance of the Malaysian plane. They looked at everybody. You have to collect everything. It's like going out and bringing everything into the barn and then throw out what you don't need.

BALDWIN: Buck Sexton, how difficult is that, especially knowing, as you are, former CIA, you know that these are the badlands, the Sinai Peninsula, this ISIS affiliate, that this could be either someone who bribed someone at the airport to get on that plane and toss that bomb on there or an insider, an employee at the airport who clearly could just put the bomb...

BUCK SEXTON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The theory is entirely plausible and, in fact, it's easy if you go through the steps.

The biggest component of it would be finding somebody who was willing. And when you look at all of the different factors here from the very beginning, just where the plane's point of origin was, where it was going, what's happened recently with Russia and Syria, we're getting well beyond that this could be some kind of a coincidence. More than the preponderance of the evidence points to this being a terrorist attack.

We're getting into 80 to 90 percent certainty territory at this point. I think we can all start speaking about it in that way.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes.

SEXTON: Certainly, it would be dereliction of duty for any of the governments involved here not to treat this at this stage as though it were clearly a terrorist act.

If for some reason that's not the case later on, they find that this was an accident out of nowhere, well, then they could adjust. But, for now, they have to act like it's terrorism, because I think we're almost to the point of as much certainty as we could expect that that is what happened here.

BALDWIN: David Cameron, prime minister, U.K., a couple of days ago came out a with a strong statement. We have heard now from U.S. intelligence.