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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Search for AirAsia Flight 8501: Debris Found; Reaction from AirAsia Families

Aired December 30, 2014 - 05:00   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.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news this morning: debris found in the search for missing AirAsia Flight 8501. Investigators 95 percent certain that they have found the vanished jetliner. The intense search could now be over. Families of the 162 people on board are reeling this morning from the news that bodies are being pulled from the water.

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

Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm John Berman. It is Tuesday, December 30th, 5:00 a.m. in the East.

And we would like to welcome all of our viewers here in the United States and around the world.

ROMANS: Let's begin with the breaking news. The head of Indonesian search and rescue operation now says it is 95 percent likely that the debris floating on the surface of the Java Sea is from missing AirAsia Flight 8501.

The bodies of the victims are being recovered from the debris on the surface. That plane disappeared three days ago in stormy weather, while flying from Indonesia to Singapore. Family members have been called to the search headquarters to be briefed by Indonesian authorities on exactly what they found.

CNN's Andrew Stevens is live in Indonesia.

And, Andrew, authorities are still saying they are 95 percent certain this is the debris. When you look at the pictures, it looks very clearly like debris from an airplane. And we know the Indonesian coast guard, they have crews, they have men in harnesses and orange jumpsuits who are retrieving bodies.

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Christine. This started to -- the news started to trickle through. The first pictures we saw were what looked like life jackets. And then, they were seeing, there were pictures showing emergency slides, emergency doors and they have also been pictures of those bodies circulating as well. A tragic, tragic end. Perhaps, though, not an unsurprising end.

This is the site of the debris is only about six miles, 10 kilometers from where the plane last had contact with ground control, where the pilots requested that they climb to get over the storm and turn left to get around the storm. So, it all fitted together.

We started to get reports in and by the early afternoon, we had confirmation from the authorities here. As you say, the head of search and rescue say that he was 95 percent certain. The only reason he is not 100 percent certain is he has not seen it with his own eyes.

And just absolute scenes of heart break as you can imagine here, Christine. The families of the people on board were in the crisis center. They were having a briefing. They were listening to the latest news when that 95 percent line came out from a press conference in Jakarta, they have a direct line through to that. Meanwhile, local television, one local television station was actually showing pictures of the bodies floating in the water.

And our cameraman who was there, who was filming from outside, you could see scenes of absolute hysteria. I spoke to one man. His friend was on that flight. His friend, his friend's wife and three children and mother-in-law, all on that flight. He said, I was standing inside with the rest of the relatives. He said I saw those pictures. He said it was hysterical reaction. There were screaming, crying, as you can imagine, people fainting. And it was just horrible.

The mayor of Surabaya was also in there. She managed to get the television turned off. The scenes must have been of an unimaginable heartache and pain and anguish.

So, now, we do know it was the flight. The grim task of recovering the bodies starts and also piecing together what happened.

ROMANS: Andrew, quickly, 5:04 p.m. where you are. How much more daylight? How much longer can they be out there, trying to recover bodies, and just make sure they know where all of this debris is so they can start again in the morning?

STEVENS: Well, as far as daylight goes, we probably got an hour of useful daylight left. It depends what vessel, what surface vessels can get to that area. Remember, the search area this morning was actually extended to 156,000 square kilometers. That is roughly the size of Greece. So, the effects (ph) were pretty widely spread.

They obviously had been refocused. We need to get surface vessels to the area. The helicopters, as you have been saying, are there. They are starting to recover bodies. But there is a lot of work to be done there, obviously.

The vessels are there. They can continue through the night. The waters are shallow. We are being told around 40 meters. We are trying to independently verify that. But if they are that shallow, it will be a much easier task recovering the wreckage, recovering the rest of the bodies that would be if they were in water. One other thing, I should add, Christine, is that president of

Indonesia, President Widodo is known here colloquially as Jokowi, is due to arrive here within the hour. He's going to be meeting the family members here. We are expecting him to speak to the press as well.

A very, very sad day, obviously. A shocked day for Indonesia considering 150 of those 155 passengers, plus the seven crew, from Indonesia.

ROMANS: He's a man whose country is in mourning. No question. Thanks for that, Andrew Stevens. We'll get back to you and let you go back to your reporting on the scene.

BERMAN: We want to take a closer now at spot where the debris was found, about six miles or so from the point of last radar contact. Our meteorologist Pedram Javaheri joins us now with a look at the conditions now there -- Pedram.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, guys, you know, six miles, exactly. And Andrew said, we've got inside an hour to work with when it comes to daylight. And the debris actually, the debris field itself located within a weak eddy current. So, it's rotating about itself at about 13 miles per day based on my calculations from the data we have as far as the ocean currents are concerned.

But I want to show the perspective as far as the aircraft. We know, of course, they made that call for a left turn because of the thunderstorm measured at 53,000 feet high. That was given clearance. They tried to climb up to 38,000 feet. That was not given clearance.

Of course, this pocket right here that cross over moments before disappearing off radar, we believe this area had significant downdraft associated with it, goes off radar sometime around 7:24 in the morning on Sunday, local time. Again, debris field, six miles east of this last area of location of the weak eddy current. The debris rotated 32 miles basically in the last circular over the past two and a half or so days.

But here is the area of interest. There is where the debris field related to this which is the current satellite perspective. Plenty of thunderstorms just south of this area. Area where the debris field is right now, reduced visibility, certainly some gusty winds, but no rainfall to speak of in this final hour before daylight exits the picture.

But as we take you from Tuesday night into Wednesday morning as we see around this part of the world this time of year, sunrise brings about few rounds of thunderstorms. Looks like Wednesday is not going to be a bad day. The weather pattern, the wettest weather stays farther to south, away from the debris field. Of course, we can't rule out a few isolated storms. Wednesday afternoon is not a bad set up.

It's Thursday that we are concerned about. Significant storms move in on Thursday. Pretty active line here and you see the structure set up. You know, winds are going to be howling. You'd have seas as much as

maybe 10 to 12 feet across the region. Also winds about 50 to 60 miles per hour. That is Thursday morning. So, certainly, the next 24 hours doesn't look bad and beyond that for Thursday and Friday, conditions once again go downhill, which is the typical pattern for the next five or six months in this part of the world.

ROMANS: All right. Pedram Javaheri, thank you, Pedram. Excellent overview of the weather as they take on the rescue and this search and recovery now.

Let's bring in David Soucie, CNN safety analyst, former FAA safety inspector and author of "Why Planes Crash".

We are getting clues here about why this plane crashed? What do you see in all this new information?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, at this point right now, I haven't seen all of the photographs because they did shot those down right away since they were broadcasting pictures of the deceased.

But at this point, I look at what's out there. It appears as the debris field is not widespread which indicates that there was an in- flight break up, that the pieces you're seeing here would be the result of the aircraft hitting in tact. So, that is the way I would be leaning.

BERMAN: Aircraft hitting in tact. We are seeing bodies on the surface here which indicates that the fuselage, at least did not sink intact.

SOUCIE: Exactly. It would have broken off typically right behind the wing and then right in front of the wings where the most vulnerable areas.

ROMANS: We know Andrew Stevens is reporting authorities are telling us that it is 40 meters deep, the water there. That means they can look quickly for the fuselage and also for the flight data and voice orders.

SOUCIE: Right. So, the towed ping locaters are on their way there now. They're going to try I think to fit those on the aircraft at sea rather than doing in port, just to expedite it.

It is important to get the boxes. There's a lot of information in them and they will stay there for a long time. In that area, you are susceptible to more ocean currents like MH370 and 447, those boxes were down in the bottom of very deep in ocean which is less moving, less activity going on.

ROMANS: If, in fact, you suggest is possible now, the plane did hit the water intact, if that's what this debris field, this relatively compact debris field is telling you, does that give you any indication about what might have gone wrong with this flight.

SOUCIE: It does in some respects. We had speculation that the aircraft may have been torn apart in air by just the weather or wind shear. Very rare. Very, very rare that would have happened.

ROMANS: These are multimillion dollar aircraft designed to withstand those occurrences.

SOUCIE: Absolutely they are. I did some testing myself at Cessna with a small aircraft and a commercial jet. That aircraft, we bend the wings so far they nearly touched each other before they break. So, they're really designed for that.

BERMAN: Loss of control and loss of orientation here?

ROMANS: What about lightning? These aircraft are lighter than a generation ago. Could lightning disrupted communication?

SOUCIE: No, the aircraft is fitted with lightning disbursement. So, what happens there is everything is grounded together by straps. So, anything that moves, anything that's connected electrically, the electricity from the lightning would go straight out and out the ends of these defractors, they take care of the lightning out the back of the aircraft.

So, there is no real ground. You know, you talk about whether you are on ground or not. When lightning strikes a person, and that you have to have that completed circuit. In an aircraft, you don't have that. It goes through and out the ends of the wings and tail.

BERMAN: So, just to back up. If it wasn't lightning or break up in the air, would it have been some kind of loss of control and unable to stabilize the flight?

SOUCIE: Well, the first thing the pilot is doing is recognizing the situation and the hazard. He weighs the risk. What is the probability of something happening?

But in reacting to something, you understand everything you do has a consequence as well. So, you are balancing what you are going to do if you recognize a turbulent situation and you've lost control of the aircraft. What do you do about it?

That's where the accidents happen. We call those the proximate cause. The proximate cause is last thing that could prevent the accident before it happened.

So, the pilot is often blamed. It is often pilot error. We don't talk about that part before, which is why did the aircraft do what it did so the pilot had to take that evasive action.

ROMANS: When they put the pieces together and figure out what happened here, do you think that this crash is something pilots will learn from, this is something airlines will learn from? This will be one of those rare situations where it will be a training moment?

SOUCIE: Yes, certainly, it will. We talk about a Swiss cheese model. What that is layers of protection or mitigation. If there is a threat or something wrong with the system or something wrong with what is going on, there are holes in every layer. Those layers are designed to not let that happen occasionally. Those holes line up, and when that happens, we have an accident. So, we will learn from this, no doubt about that.

BERMAN: Is this shaping up to be somewhat similar to Air France 447?

SOUCIE: It is too early to tell, honestly. You know, there are indications to me that similar thing happened in some realm. But way too early to discuss that until we get the black box.

BERMAN: If this is similar, though, this is when you need to, I think, address real issues.

SOUCIE: That's right. The most tragic thing for me as an accident investigator is investigating the same accident twice. That's what we may have here. I hope and pray this is not what we have here, is that same thing happened and that mitigation was not done between the two incidents. So, hopefully, we learned enough from Air France 447 to do something about it. In my estimation, there are a lot of recommendations and a lot of lessons learned that were not implemented. They just weren't done.

ROMANS: David Soucie, all of that is still -- the lessons learned still so far down the road when you realize they are retrieving bodies from the ocean right now. David Soucie, thank you so much for that.

BERMAN: All right. The families of those on board AirAsia Flight 8501 are now getting this devastating news. This debris spotted in the Java Sea is almost certainly from the plane. We are hearing some of them fainted when they heard this.

We're going to go to break. We'll get some of their stories right after this.

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ROMANS: It appears all but certain the mystery around what happened to AirAsia flight 8501 has been solved. An Indonesian rescue official says it is 95 percent likely the debris spotted in the Java Sea is from Flight 8501. And we are seeing bodies being pulled from the debris field.

Family members are getting the news. Some reportedly fainted when they were told by investigators -- obviously, an emotional and just distraught time for them. The plane had 162 people on board. It was flying from Indonesia to Singapore.

I want to bring in now, Alastair Rosenschein, former pilot and aviation consultant. He's on the phone from London.

What do you make of the images, Alastair? David Soucie has told us that one of these photos that we are looking at, which shows something orange with black stripes could be a life jacket, could also be potentially a life raft.

BERMAN: We just lost Alastair. I'm going to shift gears here. I want to talk about the families of

those onboard this Flight 8501, who just received the news the last couple hours that we have. The debris we are looking at right now is almost definitely from this missing plane. They have received that information.

You can see the images of their reactions right now, simply devastating.

I want to bring in Will Ripley who is covering this part of the story -- Will.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, you said the word devastating and it is only going to become more painful and difficult in the next coming days unfortunately, because as we know, in Asia, from other tragedies that involved water accidents, I'm thinking not just about the disappearance of Flight 370, but the collapse of the South Korean ferry off Jindo.

Now, the recovery process will be underway. And what families who are gathered here in Surabaya will have to do is they'll have to identify their loved ones. That is an awful process for everybody involved, from recovery to taking them ashore. It is why yesterday, you saw the officials there asking family members for photographs. Close up photographs of the faces of their loved ones. Any DNA samples or information they could provide.

As the hours passed, it became clear that the chances of finding any survivors was more and more unlikely. Certainly, if the plane fell from such a high altitude to the water, it was almost impossible thought that anybody could have survived that. And so, the process has already begun, the identification process, but that still doesn't make what is coming any easier.

Also, we are getting some reaction from Malaysia Airlines. As you know, Malaysia Airlines, because of their two disasters this year, MH370 and MH17, they now have 537, passengers or crew, 537 people either missing or confirmed dead. And their tweet just says, "Our prayers are with families and friends of those aboard Flight 8501. May you continue to stay strong during this difficult time -- John and Christine.

BREMAN: Will, you get the sense AirAsia has learned lessons from Malaysia and how to deal, how to interact with these families who are grieving and just want answers.

RIPLEY: Yes. You saw that with the CEO, Tony Fernandes, going and meeting personally with the families and continuing to tweet very open, very transparent, making sure that the families were kept away from the media so that scenes like the ones during 370 with the wailing in front of the cameras were not seen.

And we're not seeing thankfully that kind of situation in Surabaya right now. The families are being able to have the space that they need and if they want to come out and talk, they're given that opportunity. And, you know, Christine, you were mentioning the AirAsia versus

Malaysia Airlines. These are two competitors and whether, you know, the financial situation for the airline. The brand of any airline is always tested when there's a crash like this, and for MH17 to have crashes in a year and now for AirAsia, it will be interesting to compare how these two companies cope with this.

But the number one concern and I think Malaysia airline expressed this and I know AirAsia is also expressing this, the only numbers that matter are the number of people on those planes. That's what they are focusing on, getting people the help and support they need as it should be. They should not think about anything else at this point but helping out the families of the passengers and families of the crew on board.

ROMANS: Will Ripley from Beijing, thanks for that, Will. The debris from AirAsia Flight 8501, it has most likely been found. You are looking at pieces of it there. Investigators say they are 95 percent certain they have found parts of the vanished jetliner and bodies are being pulled from the water at this hour.

Our live team coverage continues after this break.

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ROMANS: It appears all but certain now that the mystery surrounding what happened to AirAsia Flight 8501 has been solved. An Indonesian rescue official says it is 95 percent likely the debris you're seeing there spotted in the Java Sea is from Flight 8501. And we are seeing bodies being pulled from the debris field, the Indonesian coast guard with helicopters is retrieving.

Family members are getting the news. Some reportedly fainted when they were told by investigators.

The plane had 162 people on board. It vanished flying from Indonesia to Singapore.

Let's bring in Alastair Rosenschein, former pilot and aviation consultant. He's on the phone from London.

Alastair, what do you make of the images we are now seeing?

ALASTAIR ROSENSCHEIN, FORMER PILOT (via telephone): Well, it is a human tragedy unfolding before the world's media. It is a very, very sad thing to see. As a pilot, this is one of the horrors that one hopes one rarely sees but no doubt happen from time to time.

The focus right now will be on recovering the bodies and identifying them and notifying all of the families in the best possible way.

I heard earlier there was discussion about the handling of this disaster following lessons learned on the MH370 aircraft which disappeared. Of course, this is not managed or run by the Malaysian government as the Malaysia Airline was. This is a privately owned company. It will be, I imagine, more

sensitive toward its customers and customer relations. Hopefully it will handle it in a far better way than the Malaysian government did.

BERMAN: From where we have seen so far, there have been relatively compact debris fields. What does that tell you about how this plane may have hit the water?

ROSENSCHEIN: Well, if indeed, that is the case, that would indicate the aircraft was in one piece when it hit the water. If you have a spread out debris field, that indicates break up at high altitude.

You know, we are still speculating here. They should recover the flight deck recorder and voice recorder quickly. There are beacons on both. They arranged for nine kilometers using hydrophones. They are using divers are specialist equipment to go down 90 feet deep to recover them. And then, we'll have the answers to what happened.

Of course, the immediate focus is on recovering the bodies. That is what they will be doing with what little light is left.

ROMANS: That's right. That's what they are doing right now. You see pictures of men in orange jumpsuits coming out of the helicopter. That's what they're doing, that's the Indonesian coast guard, trying to retrieve those bodies one by one as they see them.

Let me ask you this, if a plane hits the water in tact, is that all survivable from the kind of altitude we are talking about?

ROSENSCHEIN: Well, it depends on whether it is a controlled pitching in the sea or uncontrolled descent into the waters. Uncontrolled descent would involve aircraft break up as the pitching. They could pull it off as indeed your great Captain Sullenberger did in New York.

But, you know, doing it at night, and some sort of conditions, why are they down there in the first place, the aircraft would no doubt lost control, or suffered icing, or something of that nature, we can't know yet. It would not have been something which is planned by the looks of the whole incident. I don't think this was a planned descent on to water.

ROMANS: No, no mayday call. We will know when we do find -- when they find and we hear from the voice data recorder just what was happening on that flight deck in those last moments.

Alastair Rosenschein, thank you again for your expertise.

Breaking news this morning in the search for missing AirAsia Flight 8501: debris found in the sea. Live team coverage after the break.

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