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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Sonar's Detected Objects Thought To Be Flight 8501; Sony Hack Attack: An Inside Job?; MH370 Families Grieving Again

Aired December 31, 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: the wreckage of AirAsia 8501 believed to be found. Search crews using sonar equipment, possibly finding this plane on the ocean floor. Investigators are trying to figure out why the jetliner crashed, and they're trying to recover bodies of those on board, now faced this morning with a new obstacle.

Team coverage breaking down what we're learning right now.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans. Thirty minutes past the hour.

We welcome all of our viewers here in the U.S. and around the world on this New Year's Eve.

Indonesian officials are now saying that sonar has detected objects believed to be AirAsia Flight 8501 on the bottom of the Java Sea. It's still not known if the Airbus is in one piece of broken up. Officials say a seventh body was recovered overnight. They include one of the plane's flight attendants. The first two of those bodies just arrived in Surabaya for identification.

Dozens of planes are combing the area for what is now a grim search and recovery operation. Investigators hope they are a step closer to finding the flight and data recorders. The so-called black boxes, the data on those devices could help determine exactly what brought this plane down.

CNN's Gary Tuchman is live for us from Indonesia.

Good morning, Gary.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine, good morning to you.

And we just came back this very minute from a very moving and emotional ceremony at a naval air base here, where the first two victims of this terrible plane crash were brought. About 110 Indonesian army, air force and navy personnel were at the airfield, awaiting the arrival of the Indonesian air force plane carrying two caskets. The first two victims brought from the island of Borneo where they were brought from the sea and brought here back to where their plane flight began.

There was an honor guard that took the two caskets. One casket had a card on it that said 001. The other casket said 002 for the first two victims. And they were slowly marched to two awaiting hearses. Caskets were loaded on the hearses. Those numbers were on the caskets because we do not know the identities of these two victims, only their genders.

But the caskets were loaded on the hearses. And the hearses now, as we speak, being driven to a police hospital about an hour away from here where family members will be called to the scene to provide identification and possibly identify these first two victims.

A total of seven victims have now been recovered. Five of the victims are now being transported to the island of Borneo. And they, too, will be brought to the same naval base and the same honor procedure will take place for those five, and then the remaining victims as they're recovered. That's the important thing to point out right now. There were 162 people aboard the plane. There are still 155 people missing.

The fear and feeling among some officials here in Indonesia, is that the reason they haven't gotten more bodies at this point is because many of the people are probably, but not sure, but they think it's likely they're still strapped to their seats on the bottom of the Java Sea in the fuselage.

Indeed, as you said, Christine, radar and the aircraft has confirmed to the most certainty that that is the aircraft on the bottom of the sea. And the other thing that makes it certain, that's where they're finding the bodies. They know where it is, the water is not that deep. But the conditions are very hard for the search. It's murky, its' windy, it's foggy, and it's the monsoon season, and that will make it difficult.

But they will continue looking, they know where it is, the mystery of where this plane is is over, but the mystery of why it crashed certainly is not -- Christine.

ROMANS: Gary, what you can tell us about the bodies, the victims they have recovered? I know one official say is a flight attendant, four men, three women -- what can you tell us about who -- what they know about who they recovered?

TUCHMAN: Right, what we know right now of the seven, six of them are passengers. And one is say flight attendant.

The reason that the victim say flight attendant because, (a), it was a person in a flight attendant outfit. And it was also one of the women. It was all women flight attendants on the flight. But they don't know the identity of which flight attendant it is and they don't know the identity of the other six people at this point either.

Behind me is the crisis center here, Christine, at the airport. This crisis center is where family members are right now. They're getting pastoral care. They're psychological care. They're getting food and water. There are TVs in there. And they're

devouring over word and picture that comes across those TVs.

And perhaps most important thing they're getting is support from each other. We've covered so many of these disasters over the years, and the worst thing is when people are by themselves in these situations. These families are going through the same thing and they're doing the best they can right now to cope under very dire and trying and horrible circumstances.

ROMANS: All right. Gary Tuchman, our thoughts and prayers with all of those people there awaiting more news as this recovery continues.

Gary Tuchman in Surabaya, thanks, Gary.

So, right now, as Gary was saying, you know, bad weather has stalled the search in the Java Sea. It is the monsoon season. And weather has been just a hallmark of this entire ordeal from the very beginning.

Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri, he's got more in what the search teams are facing -- Pedram.

PEDRAM JAHAVERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, Christine, they're facing rough weather to say the least over the next couple of days.

Of course, as Christine telling you, the conditions here has halted operations as far as these search efforts across the area. The debris location is about 60 miles to 120 miles away from the last point of contact.

And this is the current satellite perspective. Plenty of low cloud in the region, plenty of active thunderstorms well out of the region. But the sun sets here in about an hour and a half. So, you take a look at what we have ahead of us, as we head on to late Thursday morning.

Pretty active weather begins crews right through the area debris field, and then, you fast forward this through Friday morning. Repeat performance through that region with a strong line of thunderstorms, again. And, unfortunately, when you have these thunderstorms, you're going to expect very strong wind as well associated with it, and posit for you, look at the color contours, because the deepest red indicating the strongest winds over the entire Java Sea.

This time tomorrow will be centered right over the debris field. I've taken this into the Beaufort scale, which takes that and translates what that would mean across the wave height surface. That would be anywhere from 18 to 25-foot wave heights because the winds here, about 65 to 70 miles per hour, the gusts that are expected tomorrow afternoon across this region.

By Friday afternoon, the winds will finally begin to quiet down. But you take a look when talking about the ocean currents in this region, moving generally at around one-mile-per-hour, there's the debris field. The ocean currents will want to take it to the north and also to the east.

The coast of Borneo now is several about 30 or 50 miles away from this region. But you take a look at the area and the coast there, very marshy landscape. So, it really complicates the matter when you have powerful winds in the forecast, rainfall, Christine, over the next two days could exceed four inches across that debris field location and those choppy seas that are expected.

This is really a bad scenario shaping up.

ROMANS: Yes.

JAVAHERI: In fact, the storm shaping up to be what we saw on Sunday morning with the disaster scenario as well.

ROMANS: I guess the only advantage, Pedram, these are shallower seas. It's not as if they're having to go in with submersibles and probing thousands and thousands of feet on the ocean floor. I mean, I guess the advantage is they know where this wreckage is.

JAVAHERI: That's true. The currents are a little stronger on the shallower seas. But I would imagine the officials would much area work with 100-foot depth as opposed to 18,000 feet for example, across the Indian Ocean, yes.

ROMANS: All right. Pedram Javaheri, thank you, Pedram. You'll continue to follow that weather for us this morning, thanks.

The remains of those on board AirAsia 8501 will be taken to a hospital in Surabaya for identification.

CNN's David Molko just went there and tells us what he found.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MOLKO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Once the remains of passengers and crew from Flight 8501 are brought to Surabaya, they will come here by ambulance. We're told the ambulances will come down this road where bodies will be unloaded. If you look over here, we've got what look like shipping containers. These are actually cooler containers where they're expected to store some of those remains, as they await the identification process.

Walk over with me to this side back here, as you look down this road, the white tent down here, I'm told there are dozens of stretchers inside where the bodies will be placed and eventually taken inside for the formal identification process.

We're told by the head of DVI, the Disaster Victims Identification unit for East Java, that family members have been dropping off DNA samples, dental records, photographs, anything that can help with the grim task of identifying their relatives. Family members we're told will now move to location next to this hospital -- a police headquarters that will become the new crisis center where they'll be able to receive information, updates and eventually they hope the remains of their loved ones as one relative who had four family members on the plane including two grandchildren put it to me, the best he can hope for at this point is that the remains of his loved ones are returned.

David Molko, CNN, Surabaya, Indonesia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Let's bring in Alistair Rosenschein to discuss the discovery of what Indonesian officials now says maybe the wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501. He's a former pilot and aviation consultant. They have located via sonar what they think is the bulk of the wreckage there. We don't know if it's in one piece. We don't know if it's broken apart.

Alastair, what do you make of the fact that there are seven bodies recovered, but most of them are still missing?

ALASTAIR ROSENSCHEIN, AVIATION EXPERT (via telephone): Well, it's very difficult to tell from with such patchy information. Of but it would suggest that the aircraft has broken up in some way or another. And it's possible it could have happened in flight.

But even more likely, it happened on impact with the sea. And you know, in these situations, one can't really speculate with any degree of certainty until the black boxes are recovered. But, you know, in the thunderstorm conditions that you have in this area, it is possible that the engines on the twin engine aircraft can actually flame out because of the heavy -- simply the weight of water that enters engines.

And that can cause, obviously, the aircraft to descend. So, there is an outside chance that this was in some way partially controlled to the descent to the water. I mean, you know, it would be impossible to do a successful ditching in some tomorrow conditions at night over rough seas.

So, it is, as I say, there are so many different scenarios that might have happened. But clearly the aircraft has in some way ruptured to allow passengers to separate from the aircraft itself.

ROMANS: Now comes the hard part of trying to find those black boxes which are actually orange or red, of course. We call them colloquially black boxes, on those black boxes, at the last minutes, the last chunk of time where these pilots were talking to each other, when what was happening on the flight deck, we'll be able to hear what they were saying. We'll also be able to see what was happening on these instruments.

That is the next really important clue, isn't it?

ROSENSCHEIN: Yes, you're absolutely right. That is precisely what they'll be looking for. There is also evidence with the aircraft structure itself. So, they'll want to examine and reconstruct the aircraft on land.

But the black boxes are the primary source of data in any aircraft accident. And in fact, it's so sophisticated now, they'll be able to reproduce the actual flight, the last minutes of the flight, in a simulator. So, that investigators can see precisely the flight path that this aircraft took in his last few minutes.

ROMANS: My colleague Richard Quest and I were commenting yet, in light of the airline accidents this year, with so much mystery, so much unresolved grief for the families, this one is playing out in a textbook crash manner. The plane goes missing, people waiting at the airport for their loved ones, the debris is spotted, the plane is found. And now the recover begins and the pieces get put back together.

That's something that MH370 families don't have. And even in the case of the Malaysian flight over Ukraine, still a lot of mysteries there.

ROSENSCHEIN: Yes, you're absolutely right. This aircraft accident conforms more to the normal and unfortunately sad series of events. Whereas, as the MH370, they don't know for sure what happened. I mean, I have my own theory about this which actually I put out the day it disappeared and nothing really has changed my mind on that.

But in terms of MH17, it seems fairly certain that the aircraft was shot down. And the investigators will produce a report for that one and indeed for this one, too. The main thing from an aviation industry point of view, and, of course, affecting the traveling public is that lessons are learned to avoid these accidents, incidents ever happening again.

ROMANS: Right. And that's what we don't have with MH370. You can't learn what went wrong. We don't know what went wrong.

What is your theory on MH370?

ROSENSCHEIN: Well, I believed all along that there was a technical fault which resulted in the pilots trying to turn back to Kuala Lumpur, but then becoming incapacitated and was the aircraft flying on a reciprocal heading from its turning point, over the South China Sea, which took them back over Kuala Lumpur and then the it was about 1,000 miles off the west coast of Australia.

And so, when after five or six weeks, they finally -- well, they get information that leads them to believe that that's where the aircraft was. It seems to fit very clearly with what most flight crew would do in a situation, turn back to Kuala Lumpur.

And there have been other cases like that. Of course, there are actual data points released by the Malaysian authorities and investigators which actually don't totally fit that scenario. But it is an extraordinary turn and should actually eventually turn up, in all the places where, you know, it could have done so with a typical scenario which had followed.

ROMANS: Right. Alastair Rosenschein, thank you for that. And again, those MH370 families, one of the family members, partner of one of those lost in MH370 yesterday told us in the way, she feels so sad for these families of AirAsia 8501 but a little jealous, too, because they do have an evolution of the story and some closure eventually. They're still waiting.

Alastair Rosenschein, thank you so much.

We'll be covering the latest on the AirAsia Flight 8501 recovery efforts all morning long.

But, first, the FBI said North Korea hacked Sony in retribution for the controversial film "The Interview". But could they be wrong? Why some investigators say it may have been an inside job, next.

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ROMANS: We are following breaking news this morning. Search crews using sonar may have found the wreckage of AirAsia 8501 on the bottom of the Java Sea. Grief-stricken families were informed of the news by Indonesian officials. Overnight, the body of a seventh victim was retrieved from the water. It's still not known if the plane was in one piece or broke up where it crashed.

Right now, the search and recovery operation involving dozens of ships and planes is being hampered by some very bad monsoon weather. We'll have all the latest developments on the AirAsia crash throughout the morning.

Publicly, the Obama administration still blaming North Korea for the cyberattack on Sony Pictures and says it's likely the North Koreans had help. But cybersecurity experts are now telling the FBI it is possible the massive Sony hack may have been an inside job.

Let's get more this morning from CNN's Pamela Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Christine.

FBI officials we've been speaking with are adamant that the initial assessment that was publicly revealed that North Korea and solely North Korea was behind the unprecedented Sony hack is still the case.

Officials say they're view has not changed. Even after FBI agents in St. Louis met with cyber experts with the security firm called Norse. And this firm launched its own investigation, and they claim they found evidence that it was actually an insider job, that a disgruntled Sony employee who had been with the company for 10 years and was let go last May was actually the one who used the administrative credentials to take over the Sony system, and actually played a role with the hackers who called themselves Guardians of Peace.

But the FBI officials we've been speaking with say that what they presented was essentially misinterpreted. That it was just a narrow part of the investigation.

This was not the company in the private sector that was brought in to help with the investigation. So, this company was not on the frontlines of what was going on. So, FBI officials say the conclusion they reached was from not only their own intelligence, but as intelligence from other agencies within the intelligence community and the U.S., as well as the Department of Homeland Security, and foreign partners.

And the FBI did lay out part of their case about why they reached the conclusion they did. But we're told that that was just the tip of the iceberg. As this investigation continues, the FBI could release even more information backing up their case -- Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Pamela Brown this morning for that, thank you.

The families of those onboard AirAsia 8501, they are devastated this morning as victims' bodies are recovered. But the heartbreak also hitting home for family members of another downed airliner. We're going to take you to Beijing for that part of the story, next.

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ROMANS: We're following breaking news this morning. Search crews using sonar believe they have found the wreckage of AirAsia 8501 on the bottom of the Java Sea. Officials say the body of a seventh victim has been retrieved from the water. It's still not known if the plane is in one piece, or it broke up when it crashed. Right now, the big search and recovery operation involving dozens of planes and ships being hampered by some bad weather.

It's hard to imagine what the families who lost loved ones on AirAsia Flight 8501 are going through. First, in discovery of debris and bodies, now, the plane itself may have been found on the bottom of the sea. This tragedy has also reopened some emotional wounds for others in the region.

CNN's Will Ripley is looking at that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine, this tragedy is not just affecting those in Indonesia and the immediate families and the community that are suffering so much right now. But it's also affecting people all around this region. People are following it very closely. It's front page news on pretty much all of the major papers and news channels here in China and throughout the Asia Pacific region.

And there was one regional network that was caught in a very disturbing situation for a lot of viewers. They were simulcasting a local Indonesian television station when graphic images showing a half partially clothed body floating in the water were shown on live TV. We've talked about how it was extremely upsetting to the families in Indonesia who were watching that signal live.

But that signal was also shown live via this regional network in China. It was shown in Malaysia. It was shown in Australia, very upsetting to a lot of people here following this so closely. I've been talking to the MH370 families and I was sitting yesterday

with Steven Wang, a young man whose mother was onboard Flight 370. And he told me that he was hoping for a miracle for the passengers on AirAsia Flight 8501. He was hoping that perhaps there might be some survivors. It was during our interview that the news came in and in fact debris had been found and bodies were being pulled from the water -- Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Will Ripley, thank you for that, Will.

We're going to continue to follow the latest on the recovery of AirAsia Flight 8501 all morning long.

But, first, millions of Americans soon getting a raise. An early start on your money, next.

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ROMANS: Let's get an early start on your money this New Year's Eve.

U.S. stock futures pointing slightly higher right now, closed lower yesterday. But stocks have never really been this high in history. Dow closed above 18,000 for the first time ever this month. The S&P 500 on track to finish this year with double-digit gains for the third year in a row. That is remarkable.

It makes this bull market the fourth longest in history. It's been on this run for more than 2,000 days. You can see those pullbacks there. Those red negatives. Those are the only times the market is pulled back. Look at recently. It's been going straight up.

Most experts polled by CNN Money think stocks will grow further in 2015.

More than 3 million workers will get a New Year's raise. On January 1st, 21 states and Washington, D.C. will increase their minimum wage. New legislation raises the hourly rates for 11 states while the rest go to inflation. The largest increase will be in South Dakota, $1.25 extra an hour. Florida gets a 12-cent increase.

After this New Year's increase, 29 states will have a minimum wage above the federal rate of $7.25.

Uber is expecting New Year's Eve to be the busiest service ever. The car service expects 2 million riders tonight. But how much more are customers going to pay. The company is known to raise rates when there's a higher demand. Last year, someone tweeted out a receipt of a 5-mile Uber ride that costs $255. The company said it expects fares to be highest between, yes, 12:30 and 2:30 a.m. tonight.

EARLY START continues right now.