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New Day

Plane Disappears in Stormy Weather; Indonesia VP Says It's Still a Search-and-Rescue Mission; Rescue Operations Continue for Burning Ferry

Aired December 29, 2014 - 07:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, this flight was airborne 42 minutes flying through rough weather when it lost contact with air traffic control. Right now, it's not exactly clear if that weather played any role in the aircraft's disappearance. There was no distress call made from the cockpit.

Indonesia's vice president says it is still a search and rescue mission going on there. But the hope of finding survivors, he says, is fading fast.

We are covering this story from all angles this morning in all of the key locations. Andrew Stevens has the very latest developments from Indonesia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This morning, grim new details as the search for AirAsia Flight 8501 continues. Indonesian authorities leading the search and rescue think the plane is likely on the bottom of the sea, based on coordinates of the plane's last transmission.

Here at Surabaya Airport, it's become crisis central, the distraught relatives of the 155 passengers briefed here earlier today behind closed doors. Monday marks the first full day of searching since 8501 disappeared early Sunday morning. So far the plane has not put out any signals that could help pinpoint its location.

Instead, crews focus on this very broad search zone over the shallow waters of the Java Sea where the plane was last tracked. At 5:36 a.m., the Airbus A-320 took off from Surabaya. Roughly an hour later, AirAsia says 8501 lost contact with air traffic control, vanishing en route to Singapore. Whether reports indicate the pilots encountered severe storms that may have contributed to the fate of the passengers and crew.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Usually, it's not one thing that brings down a plane. And for a modern jetliner, a strong, big jetliner to be brought down by turbulence, it's rare.

STEVENS: One theory: that the plane might have stalled as it climbed to a high altitude. This screen grab, purportedly leaked by an Indonesian air traffic controller, seems to support that. GEOFFREY THOMAS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF/MANAGING DIRECTOR,

AIRLINERATINGS.COM: What it shows is this particular flight at an altitude of 36,000 feet and climbing, but traveling at approximately 105 miles per hour too slow to sustain flight.

STEVENS: CNN could not validate the authenticity of that image.

But we do know that at 6:12 a.m., one of the pilots' radioed for permission to avoid clouds by turning left and climbing from 32,000 feet to 38,000 feet. It would be the last known communication from the crew.

TONY FERNANDES, AIRASIA CEO: We are very devastated by what's happened. It's unbelievable. But we do not know what's happened yet.

STEVENS: For these two teenage girls whose parents were aboard the flight, all they can do is wait, holding onto hope that their families will soon be found.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STEVENS: And John, the vice president of Indonesia has been telling us very clearly, this is still a search-and-rescue mission, even though frustrating. There's so little concrete evidence moved for today. Particularly if you think of just how big this search has become over the past 12 hours, during daylight, and still no signs at all. And just behind me, I've just seen the families of the passengers here being briefed yet again. But as far as we can ascertain, there's very, very little new news that they're hearing at the moment.

BERMAN: All right. Andrew Stevens for us, on the ground in Indonesia.

As Andrew just said, the search from the air has been called off. It is now nighttime. It is now dark in the Java Sea. It has been more than 36 hours since the last contact with the missing Flight 8501.

Indonesia is getting some help from regional allies and actually reached out to other countries, including the United States, for help with technology for an underwater search.

Paula Hancocks joins us now live from an island in the Java Sea, which has really been the center of the search operation.

Paula, what's the latest?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, that aerial search did end about an hour ago. The ships, though, are still in the Java Sea, as we understand from officials, and they'll continue the search for some hours.

But, of course, they're relying now on spotlight. So it's not ideal. It's very difficult for them to be able to see much out there. So really for the aerial search, we have to wait for daylight tomorrow morning now, on Tuesday. So we did speak to the head of the search-and-rescue operation who's based here, now, during this search on the island. He basically said they haven't been able to narrow the search down at all today. He said that the area that they're looking at is 240 by 240 nautical miles. A very large area. And he said they simply don't have the data to be able to narrow that down. As soon as they do, they will go straight to that location.

Now I did ask him if he thought there was any possibility of survivors still being found. He told me that, if the plane had landed or crushed into the water, that was highly unlikely. This was several hours ago he told me this him. And he said that there is a very small possibility that, if the plane crashed in the jungle just to the east of this area, possibly there may be survivors -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Paula Hancocks, 36 hours into that search. Indonesian officials telling us that at 40 hours they really do not believe there could be any more survivors -- Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: And you can imagine that's torturous pain for the families of those 162 people on board the missing plane. People crying, yelling, demanding answers into how a plane can vanish without a trace.

We're going to turn live now to Will Ripley, who's live on the ground in Beijing with reaction. It's very unlikely survivors will be found. That news must have been greeted so grimly, Will.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Michaela, it's one thing to know the odds. But it's another thing to actually be somebody who is waiting for your loved one to come home from a plane, an airplane flight, a flight that people assume will be safe.

There are families here in Beijing today who have loved ones that are still missing from Flight 370, more than 150, as a matter of fact. And yet, those people today were sobbing and crying and saying that they still wait for their loved ones to come home, even though that plane has been missing for ten months.

But the people here in China certainly know the suffering and the anguish that the families of Asia Fir Flight -- AirAsia Flight 8501 are going through right now, because they have been living it every single day, that uncertainty of not knowing.

And another thing that the families here are hoping for is perhaps closure for these families, but also, they want answers of their own -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: What must -- what must make it so much more difficult is the fact that they witnessed that when MH-370 went missing. They watched that grief, as we all did. Knowing that that's what's awaiting them must be unbearable.

Will Ripley, thank you so much for that -- John.

BERMAN: OK, thanks, Michaela. I want to bring in Mary Schiavo, CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general at the Department of Transportation. She also represented victims and their families after airplane disasters. Also joining us, CNN safety analyst and former FAA safety inspector, David Soucie. David is also the author of "Why Planes Crash."

And David, we heard overnight from the Indonesian officials saying their early conjecture, based on the coordinates that they've seen, is that this plane is at the bottom of the sea. Those were their words.

When I heard that, I was wondering, is that just a guess right now based on the lack of information, or is there anything concrete pointing to that?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, it's a balance of information, John, of course. But the fact that they don't have any evidence that points to other things is really what they're basing that on.

So there is evidence that shows that the aircraft was in a stall. We're still validating the information. It was at 36,000 feet and only going 100-and-some miles per hour. At that point, as was pointed out earlier, it's not sustainable flight. And if the power was on at that point, which it would have been, because they were in a climb situation, they were in a deep stall. And a deep stall is almost impossible to recover from.

BERMAN: Let's talk more about that, Mary. There's this screen grab. We haven't authenticated this yet, but it reportedly comes from some

kind of air traffic control. It shows this flight climbing at 36,000 feet and shows it traveling, by some assessments, about 100 miles per hour too slowly. Why, then -- explain to us why then that would be such a risk?

SCHIAVO: Well, it's such a risk because at those altitudes and in this kind of weather that this plane was likely facing, there are performance measures for every plane. Every plane has their own chart of what it can actually do. And this -- this configuration on the plane, a climb at that speed, is getting dangerously close to what we call in these performance charts cough and corner.

And that means that you're at the limits of what the plane can do. A plane can only climb so fast; it has a rate of climb. It has the ability to do certain things, but not in with a lot of moisture, not a lot of rain, et cetera, in the air. And so this plane was literally at its limits, at its climb limits. And what happens then when it stalls is it literally shudders and then kind of falls over to one side. And you don't have any more lift over your wings.

BERMAN: If it stalled. David, let's talk about what we do know. We know this was a relatively new aircraft. We know that this airline has a relatively flawless safety record. We know that the pilots, they were fairly experienced; not the most experienced pilots in the world, but certainly not novices. We know there are no pings yet from the black boxes, which means it doesn't seem like this flight is on land or on the surface of the water. So what does this all point to? Again, is this all pointing toward this possibility of some kind of stall and breakup in the air?

SOUCIE: At this point the evidence shows that it is that; there is no evidence that shows that it's not. So that's the direction that they're going right now.

Remember, the reason that we do these kind of scenarios and guess at this, is so that they can determine where the aircraft might be. In a deep stall situation, you really don't know at which direction the aircraft's going to break off, whether it's left, whether it's right or back in the direction it came from, in fact. So that's why we do these types of scenarios. It seems painful. We get a lot of criticism for speculating. And that is, indeed, what we're doing. But the speculation is for a purpose. And that is to find the aircraft.

BERMAN: And Mary, of course, one other thing we also know is the last contact between the pilots and air traffic control, which was saying they were flying into weather, requesting permission to fly above. They were denied that. They were given permission to try to fly around the weather. And that was the last that anyone heard from these pilots.

Now, you and the experts have been telling us all morning that weather itself very rarely the cause of an airplane disaster, but still, you would have to think that the weather here, based on what we have heard and what we know, is a contributing factor.

SCHIAVO: Right. Well, weather is a contributing factor in a great many of aircraft cases. I mean, in older days, I mean, in the '60s and '70s, weather was a huge factor.

But what's happened in developed countries, in the United States and western Europe, most of Asia, is you have so many other things. You have on-board radar; you have in-house meteorological departments. And you try to avoid that kind of weather.

But even in the United States, we've had cases where crashes have been caused by flying into Level 6 thunderstorms but then making the wrong decisions. So weather contributes, but because of advances in technology, at least for most places, it has been diminished. And we have better information.

BERMAN: So if they fly into this thunderstorm, David -- and there were reports of lightning strikes all over there -- what are the challenges that a pilot faces flying through these storms that did appear to exist at the time that the flight disappeared?

SOUCIE: It's a matter of deciding which is the least dangerous. Because at that point looking at what the situation was, with storms coming from both areas, the clouds building up more quickly than you can even climb above them. So all of this is happening at once, so you're just really looking for what's the -- what's the best situation to go into, which is the lesser of two evils, really. So that's the situation that pilots have to face.

BERMAN: Mary, I want you to back up for a second here and talk to us from your role as an advocate, really, for the families of those people who were involved with flight disasters.

Tony Fernandes, the CEO of AirAsia right now, he has been on Twitter. He's been fairly vocal, I would say, in the last 24 hours, which seems to me a bit of a departure from what we saw nine months ago with the Malaysia Airlines flight. Do you think there's been -- there have been lessons learned here?

SCHIAVO: Well, I certainly hope so. And I actually give lectures and talks about how you should better treat the families. I mean, the airlines and the governments that do the secrecy routine on families after an accident are really doing a disservice to themselves and to the families, because it raises suspicion.

You are going to be allowed -- a family is going to be allowed to have this information; it is their right. And if they don't get it from the airline and from the government, they will get it in their subsequent lawsuits, because it's their right to have the information about what happened to their family members. So the secrecy and the treating the families as if they're some kind of enemy is really counterproductive. And it hurts everyone involved. And it gives a really bad impression of the airlines.

So he's behaving much, you know, more properly, I think, than some airlines have in the past.

But more information is always better. Just keep that information flow going to the families. That's what they want. They want to know the answers to everything.

BERMAN: You call it a right. It's also, frankly, a need -- a need, I think, for these families, who want to begin whatever grieving process might come.

Mary Schiavo, David Soucie, thanks so much for being with us. I really appreciate it.

Want to go to Christine Romans now for some of the day's other top stories -- Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, John.

More than 400 people have now been rescued from a burning ferry in the Adriatic Sea between Greece and Italy, but five people have now been confirmed dead in that disaster. Dozens remain trapped on the boat as rescue operations continue. The fire believed to have started in the parking bay. It's been burning for well over 24 hours. An investigation into the fire has been launched.

A major turning point in Afghanistan as the U.S. formally ends its combat role in the war-torn country. After 13 years, more than a trillion dollars and the deaths of 2,200 American servicemen and women, President Obama says the war in Afghanistan is coming to a, quote, "responsible conclusion." Some 10,000 American troops will remain in the country to advise and assist Afghan security forces.

A city-wide tactical alert is now in place in Los Angeles after two suspects opened fire on two police officers driving in their patrol car. LAPD now calling it a pre-meditated attack. The officers, who were not injured, returned fire. One suspect was arrested. The second suspect remains on the run and is considered armed and dangerous. Investigators say they've recovered two weapons used in that shooting.

And the controversy surrounding Sony Pictures' "The Interview" didn't stop fans from seeing the flick. The film raked in -- get this -- more than $15 million through online sales in its first four days of release. Sony says the movie was rented or purchased online more than 2 million times. The comedy also took in about $3 million bucks at hundreds of theaters showing that movie.

PEREIRA: And reviews?

ROMANS: Reviews, well, look, it's exactly what you thought it was going to be. Right? It's a crude -- it's crude humor from -- you know, from Franco and Rogen. It's exactly what you thought.

BERMAN: That is a much nicer review than I have read anywhere. Most of the reviews -- most of the reviews say the film is not very good. So this is a whole lot of publicity, you know.

PEREIRA: For not a very good movie.

BERMAN: For not a very good movie.

ROMANS: I'd go with Brian Stelter. Brian Stelter said it was worth $6, not worth $20.

PEREIRA: That puts it -- that pretty much sums it up.

Strong words from Brian. All right, Christine. Thanks so much.

BERMAN: We are following the breaking news this morning, missing AirAsia Flight 8501. So many questions surrounding this sudden disappearance. Was bad weather to blame for this flight vanishing from radar? What about what the pilots were doing? Could they have been somehow responsible? We will explore with our experts.

PEREIRA: And this latest airplane incident may have you thinking twice about hoping on a plane. What about safety of air travel? How safe is it to fly? We'll explore.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: As night falls over Indonesia, the desperate search for missing AirAsia Flight 8501 is going to be suspended as night falls. It's not known for sure if bad weather was a factor in the plane's disappearance.

However, the pilot did request a higher altitude in order, we understand, to avoid storm clouds four minutes before the plane dropped off radar. Could the pilot's handling of that situation and cruising altitude have contributed, much like the Air France disaster in 2009. Joining us now, CNN aviation correspondent -- correspondent Richard

Quest. Shawn Pruchnicki is also here. He's an accident investigator for the 2006 crash of Delta Flight 291, and air safety expert at Ohio State University.

Gentlemen, good to have you with us.

Shawn, I'm curious. There have been some comparisons, as well, to the Air France 447 flight that crashed about five years ago. Weather was to blame there. Is that a fair comparison for us to make? I know it's early on in this stage of things.

SHAWN PRUCHNICKI, AIR SAFETY EXPERT, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY: Well, I think you're exactly right. There certainly are some similarities here. And, you know, the concern is flying near the tops of storm clouds. As a pilot, there we obviously are very focused on: icing being one, and turbulence and hail are probably the three that we focus the most on. So you're exactly right: There are some similarities here. It's going to be a really interesting development in this accident.

PEREIRA: Yes, and again, as we said, early stages.

Richard, we know that there has been also some speculation and conversation surrounding the topic of relying too heavily on autopilot. We know that after Asiana crash investigation in San Francisco, that was certainly a conversation. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think that could have been a potentially contributing factor here?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It's not so much relying on autopilot, itself. It's relying on the entire suite of avionics that now rest in the cockpit. So much, particularly, particularly -- particularly the Airbus and the A-320 -- so much of that aircraft is designed for the pilots to -- not to be so much involved with the mechanics of flying, but rather mechanics of monitoring systems and aviation and -- and aeronautics. And that's really the issue. Many senior pilots, many trainers, many of those people who are responsible for teaching pilots today say that not enough pilots are learning raw piloting skills.

PEREIRA: Interesting.

QUEST: The phrase they use is airmanship. And if you look at both 447 and you look at all the other recent incidents, you always come back to this same question. Were the pilots properly trained to fly the aircraft in an unusually small number of categories? Yes, they learn how to do an engine failure on takeoff. That may happen never. But are they used to hand flying the aircraft at altitude? They're not encouraged to do it. And many of them have never done it.

PEREIRA: What are your thoughts, Shawn? I saw you -- you don't necessarily agree?

PRUCHNICKI: Well, you know, I think it goes beyond what Richard is saying. And he is correct. It is a training issue. But there's a bigger problem here.

It's a design issue. You know, we are the ones that are designing, and as an engineer and a former airline pilot, I can tell you the way these automation suites are designed, is we have terrible feedback. In other words, the pilots are -- as Richard said, we move so much from the loop. And the solution is not to train away the bad design. The solution is for better design.

Now, I'm not sure that this plays any role, obviously, in this accident. But since we are talking about an automation type concepts, there's two sides to that: training, but training doesn't solve bad design problems.

QUEST: I think -- I think the reports are not shown on this. And the reports, the recent reports from air accident investigators time and again -- 447 is a classic example of this. It points out again and again the need to improve the training of -- true.

In many countries -- Let's be blunt about this, in many countries where there may be a lower standard of airmanship, these planes -- I've had senior people of both Airbus and Boeing say they do not design these planes for the likes of British Airways, Lufthansa, United, Delta, which have an exceptional level of training for pilots. They design them for, in many case, developing countries, where the pilots and the level of training may not be to the same high standard.

PEREIRA: Gentlemen...

QUEST: That's the real issue. No one will say that, but that's the issue.

PEREIRA: I anticipate these are going to be conversations that we'll be having in the coming days and weeks. So I want to -- I want to pull back to this exact scenario, here.

Shawn, why is it that we don't know of a mayday call being issued? We know that there was four minutes after the plane was operated, or that they -- after they had increased altitude, four minutes, there was nothing. Why was there no mayday called?

PRUCHNICKI: So two considerations here. First of all, this is not uncommon. This is something that we have seen over the last 40-plus years with air carrier accidents.

But there's two things to think about here. One would be -- one would be is that, where they were unable to call for some reason: a fire or some problem where the radios were disabled; or more likely, it's just a task saturation.

You know, as a cognitive engineer, we look at cognitive band width and the ability to -- all the things that have to be done when a serious catastrophic event occurs. And we don't -- the first thing is not always to key the mike. I've never had a loss of an aircraft I've been flying. But I've had my share of in-flight emergencies, and I can tell you that keying the mike and saying mayday is not in the first one or two things that you're thinking about doing. There's a lot more that needs to be done.

It's simply a task saturation issue is what we have seen historically. It will be interesting how it plays out once we get a hold of the CDR.

PEREIRA: Richard Quest, final thought to you.

QUEST: Well, you know, we go back to the previous examples, and Shawn is right. If you look at 447, if you look at 370, if you look at MH- 1711. There was no time in that case. They never actually have time to -- even you look at Coughlin (ph), they never have time to push the button.

But that four minutes, to put it crudely, to put it unpleasantly, that four minutes is basically the length of the time it takes to get from 36 to 38,000 feet, to fall out of the sky. That's how long it took for Air France 447 to actually fall out the sky.

PEREIRA: What a grim prospect. Richard, Shawn, great to have your experience and knowledge to help us out as we dive through this. Thanks so much -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Thanks, Michaela. The aircraft, the airline, pilot experience. These are all issues surrounding AirAsia Flight 8501. What does this incident and others this year, what do they say now about the state of air safety?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)