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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Search for AirAsia Flight 8501: Debris Found; AirAsia Stock Back Up Today

Aired December 30, 2014 - 04:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news this morning: Debris spotted in the search for missing AirAsia Flight 8501. Investigators say they are 95 percent certain that debris is from the vanished jetliner. Families of the 162 people on board reeling from the news this morning.

Live team coverage breaking down the latest on the big story begins right now.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm John Berman. Good to see you this morning. Thirty-one minutes past the hour.

Breaking news: the head of the Indonesian operations now says it is 95 percent likely that this debris spotted floating on the surface of the Java Sea is from missing AirAsia Flight 8501. Officials say search planes spotted an emergency exit door and aluminum cuttings and they also say the bodies of victims that have also been seen near the debris field.

This plane disappeared three days ago in stormy weather while flying from Indonesia to Singapore. There were 162 people on board. The family members of those on board had been called to the search and rescue headquarters to be briefed by Indonesian authorities on what they found.

We have CNN's Andrew Stevens is there live in Indonesia.

Andrew, what can you tell us this morning?

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just hysterical scenes here, John. As you can imagine as news broke, the head of the search operations now saying he was 95 percent certain that this debris was related to the AirAsia Flight 8501.

There were bodies as we now know in the water. There were pictures of those bodies. There was vision of those bodies.

And as this news broke, local television was showing pictures of the bodies in the water while the relatives of people on the plane were inside there watching. You can imagine the reaction there.

I was speaking to a man whose friend was on the flight, his friend, his wife, three children and a mother-in-law, six immediate members of the family on that flight. And he said when we started seeing bodies on television, people became hysterical, there were screaming, there were crying, people fainting.

The mayor of Surabaya was actually in with the families. She managed to get the television turned off. The damage obviously had been done. Just also the realization that so many probably all of these relatives will never see their loved ones again.

It -- the news all broke early afternoon. There had been rumors that debris had been sighted, John, as you say there were consistent with the sort of things you would expect to see in a debris field. There were life jackets. What clearly looked like life jackets, emergency door as we were saying. Almost sort of long orange slides, which could have been the emergency chutes, which deployed, which opened on impact.

So, it was all pointing in that direction. And the key to this obviously to this was so close to where the plane actually lost contact with ground control back on Sunday morning, only 10 miles or so from the actual site where the pilots had requested deviation in the flight path to get around that storm. It is off the coast of the western end of Borneo Island, the province of central Kalimantan, which is close to the flight path of the plane.

So, all of the pieces coming together with the tragic, but many would say unsurprising conclusion, John.

BERMAN: What now, Andrew, for the investigators?

STEVENS: Well, they've got to get on-site. They've got to get into the sea, start to finding out where the main bulk of the fuselage is. Obviously, there are still many people, 162 people, souls on board that plane. The priority, of course, is looking for survivors. We don't know if there are any. It would be nothing short of a miracle if there were.

We had the vice president of Indonesia saying yesterday that he could not imagine there would be survivors 40 hours after the plane disappeared. We are now a long way after 40 hours.

So, they have to get eyes on, of course, then they start the grim task of recovering the bodies. It is, as we understand it, a fairly shallow part of the Java Sea, 40 meters or so, 130 feet.

They have to get the black boxes and data recorders. They also need to move the parts of the plane and bodies and probably take them to the closest city, which is the city on the island of Borneo and then most likely come back to Surabaya, at least the bodies will come back to Surabaya -- a very grim and painful task. It could be some time before we get some real understanding of what happened on 8501. But certainly, the speculation from the beginning, John, as we have been discussing over the days, is the fact that weather was likely a contributing factor.

BERMAN: And a new phase at this point in the investigation. Andrew Stevens, this news that the debris and bodies have been spotted in the ocean about five or six miles from that point of last radar contact.

Andrew Stevens for us in Surabaya, thanks so much.

ROMANS: Andrew talked about the weather at the time of the disappearance of the plane and what the crew was asking permission to go over the thunderstorm and trying to go around it.

But what are the weather conditions in the area now where the debris has been spotted? Will investigators be able to search under water soon?

I want to bring in meteorologist Pedram Javaheri. He is looking at that part of it for us. The weather right now and it means for these next steps in the investigation.

Good morning, Pedram.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, guys.

Yes, you know, the weather pattern over the next hour and a half before the sunset here, like would it rather stable, not too bad of a set up. But it's around sunrise come Wednesday morning local time for more storms to develop.

But I want to show you the debris field location right now with the ocean currents in the region, because the ocean currents in where the debris field is located, six miles east of the track of the flight there is a very eddy formed location there. So, we're talking about, by my calculations, the debris field would move 13 miles per day each of the two and a half days, about 55 hours total time has elapsed since the initial crash there.

So, I would imagine something around 32 miles of movement for the debris in this time period. But it is in an eddy, which means it would rotate in a similar area, similar sort of an area.

So, here is the perspective. Depth across this region is generally 40 meters. That's about 130 feet deep. You go down the surface here, it's well known for a tremendous amount of silt. Muddy sort of material down at the bottom of the ocean here, sandy mud that is disturbed which reduces visibility quickly across this region as well. So, when divers go down there, if they were to move something, they have to stop moving, literally, they would have to stop moving for a few minutes at a time to allow everything to settle back down because of how dense the mud and silt is across the region.

But here you go -- this is the last known portion with the air contacting the officials out there. Then just east of it, six miles east of it, is where we have the debris field, 40 miles east of that is the coast of Borneo. So, quite close to land.

The forecast of the next 24 hours, Wednesday morning, thunderstorms want to develop. Generally south of the debris field area, which again is right next to the aircraft there, and then you head into Wednesday afternoon. Pretty nice set up -- this is probably as good a weather day as you're going to get, that means Wednesday afternoon.

Thursday on the other hand, looks like as bad as a weather day as you're going to get. As far as the next couple of days, storms really begin to develop Thursday, right around sunrise, begin around the debris field location, this will certain bring in winds 40 to 50 miles per hour with reduced visibility. We would have swells 8 to 10 feet across the region.

So, all of this could hamper operations. I would not be surprised on Thursday morning if they would halt any sort of a search effort until Thursday afternoon when the storms die down. This is typically the pattern, guys, around this portion of the world from now until April when storms develop every single morning, guys.

ROMANS: All right. Pedram, thank you so much for that.

The families of the 162 people on board that AirAsia flight 8501, those families are now getting this devastating news that the debris spotted in the Java Sea is almost certainly from the missing plane.

CNN's Will Ripley is live for us in Beijing.

And, you know, you have to think back to the MH370 families who for ten months have been waiting for any sign of their missing flight. In just three days, this flight, it looks like it has been found -- devastating, devastating for these families.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Beyond devastating and devastating, of course, for the AirAsia families who are there right now, living through this. And you can bet that the coming hours and days are going to be even harder for them.

I think back not just to MH370, but here in Southeast Asia, we had a major disaster when the Jindo ferry capsized and for a long, there was a recovery of bodies from the water there. And it is a gruesome sight to see bodies pulled from the water. And then they have to bring them to shore and families have to go in and identify their children in that case.

In this case, not only the 16 children and one infant on the plane, but then all of the mothers and fathers and grandparents, and somebody is going to have to physically identify these people as they are brought back.

So, right now, it is a horrible time. And it's only going to get sadly worse for these folks in the coming days. I also think about the MH370 families who they still don't know. The one small comfort in this for the AirAsia families is that they're going to know sooner rather than later what happened. They're going to have answers. Ten months later, almost ten months later, the 370 families don't have those answers.

So, all the way around, this is a painful and devastating situation. The next few days are really going to be a test for a lot of people.

ROMANS: And we know the Indonesian coast guard already out there with their crews and harnesses coming down from helicopters, trying to retrieve these first bodies that they are finding. So, there will be some sort of notification for families very, very soon.

Thank you so much for that Will Ripley in Beijing for us.

BERMAN: Obviously, as you were saying, you know, the nightmare of the AirAsia families are going through is something that the people, loved ones of those on board Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 lived through months ago.

Sarah Bajc lost his partner on that flight and says this tragedy raises even more questions for her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH BAJC, LOST PARTNER WAS ON MALAYSIA FLIGHT: There has to be something that ties these things together. I continue to believe that MH17 is related as well. You know, is that a systematic failure in the airlines' ability to conduct responsibility and then kind of cover it up? That could be what's being covered up. It could be the link. It could be something more sinister than that.

We honestly don't know, because we still have no absolutely facts to base any judgments on. It could just be covering up negligence by the lack of ability to close things down emotionally is just exhausting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: We're going to get a lot more clues, a lot more information, a lot more of evidence so they can start to answer those questions as the investigation continues. We are continuing to follow the very latest on the search for missing AirAsia flight 8501 all morning long. Investigators are 95 percent certain that what you are looking there, debris in the Java Sea there, is from the vanished jetliner.

Our live team coverage continues as we learn more about what has been found and what comes next.

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ROMANS: We are continuing to follow this breaking news on the missing AirAsia flight.

An Indonesian rescue official says it is 95 percent likely the debris spotted in the Java Sea is from Flight 8501. Family members have been called in to the search and rescue headquarters now. They are going to be briefed by Indonesian officials. This plane with 162 people on board vanished while flying from Indonesia to Singapore.

I want to bring in Captain Desmond Ross, again, a former pilot, now principal with Professional Aviation Services. He joins us on the phone from Sydney, Australia. We have seen these photos of the Indonesian coast guard. Men in

orange jumpsuits on a harness lowered into the ocean to try to retrieve these bodies. This search and rescue -- this recovery is moving quickly.

DESMOND ROSS, FORMER PILOT (via telephone): Yes, it will move quickly now. The discovery of the main body of the wreckage should not take long at all. They still have a couple of hours of daylight left up there before they would call that off. But even then, depending upon the weather, set up searchlights and so forth, they might be able to continue after dark.

Certainly, tomorrow will be a day of rapid movement. I think they will -- I could say they have a chance of finding the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder tomorrow, because as soon as they find the main body of the wreckage, they know where these are located within the fuselage of the aircraft. And with that depth, they could send down divers and recover the recorders very quickly if they are lucky.

BERMAN: Obviously, you know, it is grim news, these reports that there are bodies being spotted in the water. But, hopefully, it will help identify them and the loved ones will get some sense of closure.

What is the presence of these bodies tell you, or what leads does it give you perhaps in the investigation of what happened to this plane?

ROSS: It is tragic for everybody concerned. No doubt about it. Probably a better -- it's a hard thing to say, but it is probably a better way to end it than what happened with MH370. They have no idea what's going on.

But with this one, there should be some closure. And the initial impressions and I have actually seen some of the raw footage of the bodies and the aircraft in the last couple of hours, the aircraft is clearly broken up badly. The bodies have been thrown out of the fuselage. That could have occurred in flight.

It is hard to tell at the moment until we see more of the actual debris. It will be hard to know whether the aircraft really did break up, at altitude and debris and people might have fallen from it and hit the water or whether it hit the water and then broken up.

I have sort of a feeling it broken up in flight on the way down, which would not be unusual because the aircraft, if it did suffer dramatic stresses at high altitude at 36,000 feet, it would have started to come apart and out of control and turning over and turning upside down and wings on various parts of the aircraft easily broken apart at altitude. And then baggage and bodies and everything would start to fall out from that on the way down.

ROMANS: Captain Desmond Ross, aviation expert.

What we do know, John, is that whenever there is a crash, despite what it feels like in 2014, crashes are quite rare over time. But the aviation industry learns so much from every little detail that they pour over to try to make things better and make sure it never happens again.

This particular incident with this news means perhaps those conspiracy theories can be put to rest like you've heard from MH370 and the aviation (ph) that you learn from this.

BERMAN: Sure. And with the cockpit recorder and data voice recorder, hopefully, they will get the information they need to find out exactly what happened here. To see perhaps, there are some suggestions that what happened here is similar to what happened in Air France 447 and then they really would need fixes, the fixes soon.

ROMANS: Desmond Ross, thank you for that.

The debris from the AirAsia flight 8501 has been found here. Investigators are 95 percent certain they found the vanished jetliner. But will they find the plane, the bulk of the plane, and what about underwater vehicles? Will those be needed? That's after the break.

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BERMAN: The news this morning is officials in Indonesia believe they have found, they are 95 percent certain they have found debris Flight 8501 on the surface of the Java Sea. Even though with that discovery, they need to locate the body of the plane beneath the surface.

ROMANS: Yes, how they do that, it could be divers in dry suits. It could be submersibles.

CNN's Gary Tuchman, here's a look some underwater vehicles that can do the job.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The names are intriguing, what they have potential to accomplish is amazing. The REMUS 6000, the Orion, the Triton XLS, the Dorado, they are all autonomous underwater vehicles and remotely operated vehicles, AUVs and ROVs.

MARTIN STITT, ROV SUPERINTENDENT: The idea is if there is a black box, not a problem at all for an ROV to pick up, put it in a basket and recover it.

TUCHMAN: This is the Triton XLS ROV, based in Florida connected to a ship by umbilical cord.

Then, there are the AUVs, which are not connected. This is the Orion, owned by the U.S. Navy, run by a company called Phoenix International.

Vehicles like this send sound signals to the seafloor, which paint a picture of what's on the bottom.

Then there is the REMUS 6000, also an AUV. A team from Woods Hole, Massachusetts, has already met dramatic success locating the wreckage of Air France Flight 447 two years after it crashed in the South Atlantic Ocean, the discovery only possible because of this AUV. This is the initial shot of the Air France debris captured by the REMUS 6000.

MIKE PURCELL, WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION: They can go up and down mountains that are up to 40 degrees in slope. They are very stable so you get really good data almost all the time.

TUCHMAN: Another AUV that could be used, the Dorado, based at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California, where CNN's Stephanie Elam visited.

DOUG CONLIN, MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM RESEARCH INSTITUTE: So, this is a titanium pressure sphere, so this is good to 6,000 meters deep. And inside we have all the sonar electronics.

TUCHMAN: The other option is the manned submarines or submersibles. This vehicle that resembles a spaceship is a man submersible called the Johnson Sea Link based in Florida. This sub located wreckage in the Atlantic Ocean after the tragic explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986.

(on camera): This sub is about 24 feet long. It's also about 11 feet tall. And it weighs about 28,000 pounds. It has enough oxygen and emergency provisions aboard for the people to survive under water for up to five days.

(voice-over): This sub is retired, though. But other subs that can go even deeper could be brought into action along with AUVs and ROVs ready to assist, if asked.

Gary Tuchman, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Really interesting how they're going to deploy that technology and try to solve this mystery.

We'll continue to follow the latest on the AirAsia Flight 8501. Investigators are 95 percent certain they found debris from the jetliner. Our live team coverage continues.

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ROMANS: We are following the grim news that investigators believe they have found the debris from AirAsia Flight 8501. The stock in the airline up a bit this morning. Yesterday, that stock fell 8.5 percent. There are worries, of course, the missing plane disaster could scare away future passengers.

Airlines operate with thin profit margins. Any drop in travelers could have a big financial impact. This is an airline, by the way, that is often ranked the -- highly rated low fare airline in the region. But, again, very closely watching what it means for the health of the company.

With the AirAsia jet still missing, many are drawing comparisons to Malaysia Airlines jet that disappeared in March. For investors, that's not a very encouraging thought. But AirAsia is on a better financial footing. Malaysia Airline has been losing money for years before Flight 370 disappeared.

AirAsia, on the other hand, is expected to increase profits this year. Shares up more than 20 percent this year. It has a good reputation as a reliable low-cost carrier. It would be really key to see how the company responds to this crisis. How the company responds.

But CEO Tony Fernandes has been tweeting from the beginning, talking about how is brokenhearted and how his thoughts are with his employees and their families and his passengers.

Another search for a missing plane has many wondering, why can't we -- why can't we track an airplane's location? You know, the technology already exists. Companies like Flyht offer real-time tracking, plust a live stream of information from the cockpit to the ground when something goes wrong. So what's stopping companies from using this technology? Experts say the answer is very simple: money. If it's not government-mandated, airlines generally won't pay up. But interesting that the technology is there. But they're just not quite using it yet.

BERMAN: All right, EARLY START continues right now.