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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Official: "95 Percent Likely" Debris is from AirAsia Plane

Aired December 30, 2014 - 04:00   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.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news this morning: debris spotted in the search for missing AirAsia Flight 8501. Investigators say they are 95 percent certain it is part of the vanished jetliner. The families of the 162 people on board reeling this morning from the news.

We have live team coverage breaking down the latest on the big story that begins right now.

Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START. And I'm John Berman.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Christine Romans. It is Tuesday, December 30th. Four a.m. in the East.

We welcome to our viewers here in the U.S. and around the world.

Let's begin with the breaking news: the head of Indonesia's search and rescue operation now says it is 95 percent likely the debris spotted floating on the surface in the Java Sea, that debris is from missing AirAsia Flight 8501. Officials say search planes spotted an emergency exit door, aluminum cuttings. They say the bodies of victims have also been near, seen near the debris filed.

Now, the plane disappeared three days ago in stormy weather flying from Indonesia from Singapore with 162 people on board. Family members have been called to the search and rescue headquarters to be briefed by Indonesian authorities on just what they found.

We have CNN Andrew Stevens is live for us in Indonesia.

Andrew, it looks as though any doubts about the fate of that plane are vanishing.

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Indeed, Christine. A tragic but not surprising conclusion to this situation on day three and the mystery of Flight 8501 now appears to have been solved. And if f you look at the way that debris is, it is right ten kilometers, five miles from where the plane last made contact on Sunday, about an hour after it took off at 5:30 on the morning on Sunday.

So, all the pieces of the puzzle have come together, excuse me, on this, Christine. It looks -- we have been speaking to the air force, it looks like the air force in Indonesia spotted the bits of debris around at 10:00 this morning, today being the third day of the search. Three separate planes saw three debris fields, which they thought at the time did look like debris from an airplane. As the afternoon wore on, we started getting local media reporting that the Indonesian officials saying it looks as if this debris is indeed from 8501. It has turned out to be the case.

The head of the search and rescue saying the only reason he is not saying this is 100 percent certain is he has not had his own eyes on that debris field. Obviously, the reports he's been getting and pictures he's been circulating as well, pictures of the emergency door, they've been objects which look very, very like life jackets and, of course, there have been bodies floating in the water. In fact, the pictures of the bodies broadcast on local television here. Much to the anguish, as you can imagine, of the families of the relatives.

So, what happens now? Well, there's still -- rescue authorities still need to get to the scene. The weather conditions were good this morning. We have been told that they've been deteriorating this afternoon. Helicopters have been trying to get through to the debris field. Vessels are on their way. We don't know if they have been able to pull anything from the water for further identification. It really is only a matter of time now.

I should add the president of Indonesia is on his way to Surabaya, where I am here, Christine, to talk both to the families, of course, and we expect him to talk to the media as well. But its an incredibly tragic day for Indonesians, 155 of those -- 150 of the 155 passengers Indonesians, Christine.

ROMANS: Andrew, tell us about the depth of the sea there and what it means for trying to retrieve any of the flight data recorders or put in the final pieces of this puzzle together, and figuring out what happened to those planes, what happened, what went so terribly wrong.

STEVENS: Well, it shouldn't be too difficult to actually recover the parts off the plane. This is actually a very, very shallow area. We are getting reports that the seabed is some 40 meters below the surface. That's shallow enough for actual divers to get down. In fact, teams of divers are making their way as soon as they can to that area, to start piecing together exactly did happen to that plane.

But it does look like and tends to bear out the theories of the aviation experts that this plane did encounter severe weather conditions, which looking increasingly likely weather played a big part in that airline crashing into the Java Sea. We know the pilot's last known communication with ground control was to request permission to climb by 6,000 feet from cruising altitude to 38,000 feet to try and get over the top of the weather system.

We have since been told that weather system could have gone up to 50,000 feet. They also turned left to get around it. That's when they lost contact. The plane parts found close to where they lost contact. Investigators will be pulling pieces of the fuselage, the wreckage and

bodies out. It looks like it's going to be taken to a staging post, a town on Borneo Island, which is the closest land to where the plane went down, a town called Pangkalan Bun. We don't know how long or whether that will become the key investigation area or actually make its way back here to Surabaya where the flight originated.

But the family members are being asked to provide photos and asked to provide ID and anything that could perhaps help investigators to identify the bodies, including DNA tests obviously. So, those painful steps have to be taken.

ROMANS: All right. Andrew Stevens for us in Surabaya, a lot going behind you, and as you said, the president of Indonesia is on the way to Surabaya. We let you get back to your reporting. Thank you for that.

BERMAN: Indeed, it is a somber moment I think for those families now all dealing with this moments. There are still so many questions.

I want to take a closer look at that area where the debris was spotted. Just five or six miles from the last point of contact. Let's talk about the weather conditions facing the searchers right now.

We are joined by meteorologist Pedram Javaheri -- Pedram.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Guys, you know, it kind of goes hand-in-hand with the thunderstorm, of course, a couple of days ago that measured up to 53,000 feet high. I want to show we are locating the debris field here east of the aircraft. Generally about six miles east of the aircraft, just 40 miles away from the coast of Borneo and 100 miles away from the population of Pangkalan Bun.

It kind of shows you what we are talking about. This is the area of interest with the possible debris in place, of course, becoming more and more likely as the hours progress here, in the morning hours, but you take a look at the area at this very moment. Satellite imagery, again, the debris just east of the aircraft, indication there with partly cloudy skies. The sun sets in about an hour and a half from this moment.

So, they're going, of course, to call it off as soon as that happened in the next hour and a half with the weather pattern at least right now staying to the south. Active weather pattern.

So, what does the forecast hold for the next couple of days? We'll take you through morning hours of Wednesday morning local time across this region. More thunderstorms want to begin to blossom.

Looks not too bad -- Wednesday looks like might be better days as far as search efforts are concerned, because the storms do want to stay to the south in the morning and by the afternoon hours, they begin to taper off. Unlike North America when you have storms really with thunderstorms blossoming into the afternoon hours across the equatorial region here, we are talking about storms here peaking sometime around sunrise, which is, of course, the case with the massive storm that potentially was the issue for the plane coming down.

But, again, Wednesday is not looking too bad with the vast majority of the weather staying to the south. Thursday looks like the worst weather day of the week when it comes to the early morning hours, at least right after sunrise, pretty impressive line of thunderstorms develops over the particular area of the debris field. This looks like it will continue for four to five hours.

Every single day, you get about four or five hours of stormy weather in the morning hours, and another four to five hours of weather that improves in the afternoon hours. Only gives you a few hours of daylight to work with when it comes to weather cooperating in this region.

BERMAN: We'll do the work when they can. Pedram Javaheri, thanks so much.

ROMANS: I want to bring in now, Alastair Rosenschein. He's a former pilot and aviation consultant, to talk about the debris found in the Java Sea. Officials say it is 95 percent likely to be from the AirAsia flights. He joins us on the phone from London.

And as we have said, you have flown this route of this flight before. You know about the stormy weather conditions that can be in that region. And now, the news that this flight, what is most likely the flight has been found five or six miles to the east of the last known location of that flight path.

Alastair, what do you make of it?

ALASTAIR ROSENSCHEIN, FORMER PILOT AND AVIATION CONSULTANT (via telephone): Well, obviously, first of all, my condolences to the families and to the crew's families of this aircraft. I mean, this is obviously a tragic result to this aircraft. And just to point out where this lies in the sea. So, apparently, about 300 miles northeast of Jakarta which is central Java, western Java.

And, you know, we have been speculating about whether this aircraft was brought down as a result of flying through a thunderstorm. And that is purely speculation. Now it looks pretty certain, they found the aircraft, they should recover the flight data recorder and cockpit recorder. They'll be able to piece together precisely what happened to this aircraft.

The possibility that could have occurred flying into a thunderstorm, that is a likely cause, would have been loss of control of the aircraft or the aircraft actually breaking up in the severe turbulence and icing conditions there.

So, you know, one really has to hold off on deciding what may have happened and wait patiently for the investigators to piece it all together, because unlike the missing Malaysia airline MH370, we will find out what happened to this aircraft with a high degree of certainty. BERMAN: Alastair, there are some now new clues. We now know the

debris was spotted five or six miles from the point of last contact in the air. We also know that Indonesian TV has shown pictures of bodies in the water. We are not showing those pictures.

What are those two clues tell you that the fuselage perhaps did not hit that water intact?

ROSENSCHEIN: Well, you are quite right. I mean, there are reports of actually of another media saying that a passenger door, and a cargo door have been sighted. I understood that would mean they are floating on the surface. I have also seen photographs of orange- colored life jackets with black straps around them.

And the authorities in Indonesia will know immediately if that is the type of like jacket carried on on that aircraft. So, they will know whether or not this is from the aircraft. But it would indicate a high impact hitting the sea, because that is the only way the doors would tend to break up. So, you know, it does look like a very sad outcome to this accident now.

BERMAN: Yes, it certainly does. You call it an accident. We have to find out exactly what happened. That is where this turns next. It will be a recovery -- still a search and recovery by the way on the off chance that someone could have possibly survived something like this.

Search and recovery, pick up the pieces in relatively shallow waters, Alastair, 40 meters is what our Andrew Stevens is saying us, which means divers could be in there rather soon to find the voice and data recorders, and then, you start to put the pieces together.

ROSENSCHEIN: That sort of depth is possible with divers with specialist equipment. They can go down. They cannot stay down very long, but they can, in fact, recover things.

I would imagine that we're talking in terms of weeks rather than months in recovering the data recorders. It's possible they could find it sooner than that. That's difficult to know the visibility is like down there with the currents. I have done some diving myself. It is not always straight forward. There are other factors that come into play.

And also, the surface water, if it is stormy or likely to be lightning strikes again. It is monsoon type of weather that we have at the moment. So, you know, this will impact on how quickly they recover. Obviously, priorities will be given to recover the bodies of the passengers and crew.

BERMAN: Alastair, we are now getting this news. Just to remind everyone, Indonesian officials say it is 95 percent likely the debris they spotted in the Java Sea is that of AirAsia flight 8501, just about five or six miles from the point of last radar contact in seas that are 40 meters deep. As you say and we have been told, it does seem likely, hopefully, they will be able to recover the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder perhaps even soon. What is the first piece of information that you will look for on those

recorders?

ROSENSCHEIN: Well, you don't actually look at the first pieces. We get the whole lot all at once. There are special decoding machines used to recover it.

But I will want to hear a timeline of the cockpit voice recorder. That will be an immediate clue as to what was happening on the flight deck from the pilot's point of view. And then, after that, you will look at the flight path. It will show what altitude the aircraft was at. It will show the sequence of changes of the aircraft where the control positions were and you will also have readings from the pressure altitude and air speed indicator.

These are all, you know, multiple data points, all of which effect together and give a picture of that flight. They would include rate of climb, rate of descent, pressure. It is not one single data point or one first thing you look at. You piece together everything very carefully.

Having done so, you can actually reenact this flight, you know, simulator. It is quite extraordinary how sophisticated the information is and information recovery is once you get those two recorder box boxes. And in fact, it is possible also to use this data to program a simulator so that future pilots can be trained to actually be in the cockpit of the aircraft that suffered an accident, I have been in some of those myself during my career. They are quite extraordinary to see just how accurate it is to put together what happened.

But the first thing in order to achieve this is to get those two black boxes together. Without those, one is still guessing.

ROMANS: Alastair Rosenschein, thank you for your expertise and insight on this tragic story.

BERMAN: You know, this news coming in just over the last couple hours, which means the families of the people on board, the 162 people on board AirAsia Flight 8501, they are getting the devastating news as well, that the debris spotted is almost certainly from the plane.

CNN's Will Ripley is live for us in Beijing covering that part of the story.

Good morning, Will.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, if you can call it that, John. It is just the worst possible news for the families of these 162 people and I just keep thinking about what this week is supposed to be. It's supposed to cap off the end of 2014, which has been a very sad and tragic year in Southeast Asia when it comes to air travel. Again with MH370, 239 souls on that plane, are still missing right now.

I just interviewed Steve Wang, his mother, his 57-year-old mother was on Flight 370. He was talking about how AirAsia disappearance brought everything back for him. All of that pain, that punch in the gut, the fear, the panic, the desperation. He felt it all over again, as did all of the 370 families as they did learn about this plane's disappearance.

And one thing that he told me, he said, "I'm really hoping for a miracle for the families of Flight 8501." "I'm hoping," he said, "that perhaps someone will be alive" -- just like he still hopes almost ten months later that his mother is still alive. He hasn't even been able to speak her name out loud because he doesn't want her identified as a victim, because he still holds out hope his mother may be out there somewhere.

And as we were doing that interview, word came in that there is likely debris from this plane and bodies in the water. I have to tell you, when I looked in his face and in his eyes, it was almost as if he was learning about something happening within his own family. That's how painful it is for the people of the families here in China, the families all over Southeast Asia and so many people closely following this story, secretly hoping that perhaps this plane crash landed on land or somebody made it out OK.

But to hear now and we sea this video of the families reacting to the news that there is debris and there are bodies, there almost aren't words to describe this sad day, not for the families of the 162 people, but so many others for people here in this part of the world and around the world.

BERMAN: This is a sad moment across many, many nations.

Will Ripley, live for us in Beijing, thanks so much.

We are continuing to follow the very latest on the search for AirAsia Flight 8501. The debris found, investigators 95 percent certain, it is connected to the vanished jetliner.

Our live team coverage continues right after this.

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BERMAN: The breaking news this morning on AirAsia Flight 8501. An Indonesian rescue official says it is 95 percent likely that this debris, the debris spotted in the Java Sea, is from Flight 8501.

The family members of those on board have been called into the search and rescue headquarters to be briefed by Indonesian officials. The plane, of course, with 162 people on board disappeared from radar after lost contact flying from Indonesia to Singapore.

ROMANS: Let's bring in Captain Desmond Ross, a former pilot, now a principal with Professional Aviation Services. He joins us via Skype from Sydney, Australia.

I just -- my heart goes out to the families who are watching this looking for any bit of news they can. My heart goes out to the families who saw on Indonesian television, bodies and debris floating behind them. We are not showing those pictures. But we can see an exit door, an emergency exit door, pieces of aluminum -- potentially a life jacket seems floating.

Does this give you any indication, sir, about whether this plane was intact or when it crashed into the sea, or whether it broke up over the air? What kind of clues are you seeing from this early information?

DESMOND ROSS, PRINCIPAL, DRA PROFESSIONAL AVIATION SERVICES: (AUDIO GAP) the flight, it looks like it broken up in flight. I doubt very much it landed intact. (AUDIO GAP) If it landed at level attitude, it would have been spread more.

I think looking, I have seen some of the raw footage myself, and it looks to me it is quite coming in at a fairly steep angle. So, I doubt very much that the passengers or the crew knew a great deal (INAUDIBLE)

BERMAN: The steep angle, the debris in a relatively compact area. There are bodies in the water. We are not showing pictures of the water, which indicates the fuselage did not remain intact upon hitting the water or from the air.

What clues does that give you if any to what may have caused this disaster?

ROSS: It is very difficult. These aircraft are designed to withstand wind shear forces, turbulence in flight. It's quite unusual -- extremely unusual for an aircraft to break up due to a thunderstorm or bad weather. That's the first point.

If, in fact, that what has happened this time, it -- we could be speculating on the possibility of extreme wind shear, sudden changes in the direction and speed of the wind, which may have made the aircraft uncontrollable. The aircraft may have even turned on its back, the pilots may have lost control.

In the subsequent descent, which would have been uncontrolled from that moment, the aircraft may have broken up through stratos (ph) caused by the fall, the movement of a stalling aircraft.

I said it earlier today and I'll repeat. We still do not know for certain this weather is what has caused the accident. The weather is certainly a contributing factor. Apart from everything else, the pilot tried to climb over it.

There could have been another catastrophic event that has taken place on the aircraft, for some reason, mechanical failure or whatever. The weather may have been there as a contributing factor to the whole event. We don't know that. We won't know that until we get the flight data recorders.

ROMANS: That's what -- that's what the next step, no question, pulling the pieces of that plane out of the water, trying to put them together and investigate the clues -- the little clues on the fuselage. Then, of course, the divers or submersibles who would be looking for those flight and voice data recorders. We are told there's 35 or 40 meters deep in that area, which means they could be very quickly pursuing those clues, couldn't they?

ROSS: Absolutely. They will be on the first flight tomorrow morning. I have no doubt at all.

In fact, they could dive easily in dry suits. I'm sure they have some submersibles available. I don't expect the actual recovery of the flight data recorder will take more than a day or two. Once they find the main body of wreckage, they know exactly where it should be located in the tail and in the cockpit areas, and they will be able to locate that within days, I believe.

ROMANS: Captain Desmond Ross, a former pilot, now a principal with the Special Aviation Services -- thank you, sir, for joining us this morning again.

BERMAN: And the news we are covering the news, the breaking news that debris from missing AirAsia Flight 8501 has most likely been found. Investigators say they are 95 percent certain that these pieces you are seeing are connected to the vanishing jetliner. We will have all of the latest details right after the break.

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