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New Day

Debris Likely Belongs to AirAsia Flight 8501; Families of Passengers Receive Devastating News

Aired December 30, 2014 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Debris spotted in the search for missing Airasia Flight 8501.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The key bring was spotted six miles from the plane's last-known flight position.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were bodies as we now know in the water.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The worst possible news for the families of these 162 people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can imagine, unfortunately I know exactly what they're going through and it's horrible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The searchers have been lowered down by helicopters to find bodies in the water as well as debris.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They should be able to recover the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder and they'll be able to piece together precisely what happened to this aircraft.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. Welcome to NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, December 30th, 6:00 in the east. I'm Michaela Pereira alongside John Berman. Christine Romans will join us shortly. We want to welcome our viewers in the U.S. and around the globe.

We head right now to breaking news, a tragic end to the search for missing Airasia Flight 8501. "Reuters" reports that Indonesian rescue teams have now recovered at least 40 bodies among debris from the doomed flight just six miles from where it was last seen on radar.

Crews have also found an emergency exit door and aluminum cuttings from the broken up plane in the shallow water of the coast of Borneo Island. The main fuselage and the flight data recorders, though, have not yet been recovered. Indonesia's top search-and-rescue official says it's, quote, "95 percent likely" the debris is from that missing flight.

Divers now being sent to the site to search for additional bodies.

BERMAN: A small army of helicopters is flying over the location of the debris, which will soon be taken to Surabaya in Indonesia for further examination.

The distraught family members are being called in to receive the grim news. They're huddled against throngs of cameras surrounding the briefing area. The relatives just hit with this information that they will never see their loved ones again.

The president of Indonesia and the CEO of AirAsia are on their way right now to Surabaya. We're covering this story like only CNN can in all the key locations. We want to go to straight to Paula Hancocks. She just got back to land minutes ago after being out on a search vessel to see these efforts firsthand -- Paula.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well John, just speaking to some of the officials here, we have new information about what will happen to some of those victims that are now being found at the location. We understand from officials here that they will be brought to this island, Belitung Island. They will be brought to a port about an hour away from here.

The reason they're not going to the closer island is simply because the water is not deep enough to accommodate the navy ship that will be transporting them. So we understand from these officials that the bodies are being retrieved from the water. It's not clear how long at this point exactly how long it will be until they come back to shore. But the trip itself will take about seven hours. So it will be some time.

And of course as you can see, the light is fading now. It's just after 6 p.m. in the evening. There's not much light left, so of course, for those helicopters that are helping retrieve the bodies, it will be difficult, as well.

Also, in Tanjung Pandan, the town about an hour away from here, on Wednesday, tomorrow, we will see the National Transport Safety Commission arriving, according to the governmental head of this region. He's -- that's basically to start the initial investigation.

And as we understand it, from officials at this point, the debris will go to the airport there; and then the victims themselves will be brought to the port.

Now of course, we got the news that the plane had likely been found as we were out on a fishing boat with a local fishing crew on that search-and-rescue operation. It was a very somber trip back. They were very sad that this plane had necessarily been found, but there was no trace of survivors at this time. And they said that their hearts were heavy, and they certainly wanted to send their condolences to the families -- John, Michaela.

BERMAN: Now that there is this debris field, how will that change these operations going forward? Will the vessels be able to stay out overnight, stay in the area? When will helicopters be able to get back out over again?

HANCOCKS: Well, some of the vessels have been staying out all night anyway, but of course, they can't do too much when it's dark. They do have spotlights. They are sending all the assets that they need into that particular area. So obviously, the more high-tech assets will be very useful for them to try and -- to try and retrieve some of the victims. But also to try and retrieve some of the technical equipment from the plane that obviously could give them some indication as to what happened.

I did ask the head of the search-and-rescue operation here, do you have everything you need? And he said at this point they do, because their focus is on the people, on the passengers and crew, and to make sure that they can retrieve all the victims. Then they can turn their minds to exactly how to retrieve the body of the plane, if in fact, it is in that location.

PEREIRA: Yes. Grim but important work for them to do yet in these hours ahead.

Paula, thank you so much for that.

Meanwhile, some of the families of the 162 people aboard the plane learning the devastating news as they watched graphic images on Indonesian television. Their response understandably met with tears, and anger. Will Ripley joins us live with that part of the story -- Will.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Michaela, this is just an awful ordeal that these families have already gone through, many of them just hoping for a miracle here, that perhaps there may have been some survivors, which now as the pictures come in and the details come in, seems to be impossible.

As we're getting reports from Reuters, 40 bodies now have been recovered. And the families face even more hardship in the days ahead. Because once these bodies are recovered, they're going to be taken to area hospitals, where family members will then have to identify these people, who are being pulled out of the water after being in the water now for a couple of days or perhaps longer in the cases of some victims who are yet to be recovered.

It's a horrible situation. The families are being kept away from the press and away from the news cameras. But they do have access to those live pictures that were shown on the local news there in Indonesia, where bodies were actually shown on camera. And people were reacting in horror as they were seeing that. It's something unimaginable that these families are going through right now.

For the families of MH-370, another plane that is still missing, this comes as a double blow. This has been an emotional shock for them this week, and now they still don't have closure. But these 162 families, this is the beginning of closure for them, but very difficult times ahead -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: Very difficult times. Our hearts are with them, as are our thoughts and prayers. Will, thank you for that.

The U.S. Navy is sending a guided missile destroyer to help other nations in this ongoing recovery effort. Our Rene Marsh joins us live from Washington to tell us more about the U.S. role, especially now that a debris field has been found -- Rene.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. When we first heard, Michaela, that the U.S. Navy was going to be dispatching the USS Sampson, it was a different mission. But things have changed over the last few hours.

So more about this ship. You're looking at a photo of it there. We know that it has two helicopters on board. Those helicopters usually used for search-and-rescue missions; also used for cargo lift. So what we may see here is that they will be able to assist, perhaps, in recovering some of the wreckage that is floating on top of the ocean.

We also know that this particular ship does have sonar equipment. However, at this point it is unclear if the specific sonar equipment on board this ship would be compatible with this specific operation. We know that it's usually used to detect a submarine in the water, but could it be used to identify a part of the plane that is sitting on the seabed and be able to identify the plane versus a heap of rocks? It's unclear if it's sophisticated enough to do that. We have reached out to the Navy for clarification on that.

Also, we do know that the U.S. could be called in for use of other equipment. Now that this is a recovery mission, we know that there will be need for remote-operated vehicle, cranes. So we could see U.S. companies supply that. And at this point, we know the NTSB only monitoring. French investigators seem to be taking the lead on this one -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: Yes, those underwater submersibles will be so vital in terms of the investigation. Rene, thanks so much for that -- John.

BERMAN: All right, thanks, Michaela.

Want to bring in Mary Schiavo, CNN aviation analyst, the former director inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation and now an attorney for victims and family who do suffer through these airplane disasters. Also with us, David Soucie, CNN safety analyst, former FAA inspector and author of the upcoming book, "Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Why It Disappeared and Why It's Only a Matter of Time Before It Happens Again."

And David, I want to start with, I think, the most disturbing news. It's also the most current news. Reuters is reporting that 40 bodies have been recovered from the water. This has got to be so difficult for the families. And our hearts go out to them. But this is now also part of this investigation. When you hear that 40 bodies have been recovered from the water after an obvious air disaster, what does that tell you, perhaps, about what might have happened?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, there's two things that we can get from that. One of which is the fact that the bodies were closely located. They hadn't been spread out, meaning that it would indicate to me that there was at least a large portion of the aircraft that was intact when it hit the water. So it doesn't appear to me that there was an in-flight break-up of the aircraft. It appears that it broke up on impact.

BERMAN: And Mary, is that something that makes sense to you, the idea that, perhaps, that the plane did hit the water intact?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Yes. I think David's right. The grouping of the bodies and the other wreckage that they have so far and the indication that they also believe that the getting of the black box is really pretty much imminent. I think that that's pretty safe to say that the plane came down intact and broke up when it hit the water.

BERMAN: The number is not something we're certain; Reuters is reporting that. We have seen with their own eyes from some of these images bodies being pulled from the water. We are not showing these pictures, because they are troubling. But again, it is part of this investigation.

Also part of the investigation, David, the door, an emergency exit door. Pieces of aluminum. These tell you anything?

SOUCIE: Well, in -- it's too early to tell. I haven't seen all the photos yet because of the fact that they've been edited out at the moment. But what's concerning to me is it appears there's pieces of life raft there. And that would indicate to me, that these life raft, they don't deploy automatically by themselves. And the fact that the one emergency door separated by itself may indicate that it was actually ejected from the aircraft and that the emergency raft was deployed somehow. So that gives us hope that perhaps the aircraft did go as one piece, and there may have been or may still be some survivor. And we can keep hope for that.

BERMAN: Well, they are out there searching at this time.

Mary, the debris field, the pattern here, the objects that you see, what does it tell you, then, now about what might have happened in the air, about what might have gone wrong? If it didn't break up in the air, what does that mean?

SCHIAVO: Well, it means most likely that the plane was, of course, as everyone already knows, going through extreme weather. But it does continue to point to some kind of an aerodynamic stall. That there's a reason that the plane fell from the sky right there, pretty close to the last radar hit. So it didn't travel much beyond that. Mechanical -- some kind of a mechanical issue that's not an aerodynamic stall, the plane can limp on. Lots of times planes can fly for, you know, hundreds of miles with something wrong mechanically.

But on an aerodynamic stall, you fall from the sky where you are. And since that was the last radar hit, that's what we would tend to expect when they do look at the wreckage. And it does look like a wreckage pattern and the kind of wreckage you find from other aerodynamic stall cases that I've worked that ended in the water.

BERMAN: Interesting. So David, you do now have these pieces of evidence. You have these images. You have this location to start from. What do you do now to track back to find the fuselage? To find the black boxes?

SOUCIE: Well, one of the things I wanted to touch on first, the first clue that I see is the fact that the aircraft is actually back beyond where it had been pinged. So in the radar it was found here. It turned and went back the other direction. That would tell us one of two things. Either it was a flat stall, at which the aircraft fell and then found its own direction as it picked up air speed and then ended up going back in the other direction.

Or another thing it might tell us is that the pilot had recognized the risk and was not able to get through those clouds and had made the decision to try to turn around. So that's the first piece of the clue.

Going forward, though, the first thing to do after the bodies are taken care of, because that is the first priority -- it always is the first priority -- is to do the respect that is due these passengers and to get the bodies recovered and, of course, look to see if there's any survivors.

But the second thing you do, the most important clue now is the black boxes, the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder. So the first thing that I would do at this point is try to get that out there and start trying to find -- look for pings, calculating the drift. Luckily, this drift is in a circular motion, so it hasn't drifted hundreds of miles off or anything like that. So I hope -- I'm hopeful that they will find it.

BERMAN: In shallow water it should be easier to find than in other situations.

SOUCIE: That's very true.

BERMAN: Mary, you deal with families of victims of incidents like this. What is it like in these moments? It's such a disturbing moment on the one hand to see the bodies in the water, to finally find the debris, to know that this plane did go down. But on the other hand, there is a closure here that the families of Flight 370 don't have.

SCHIAVO: That's right. I won't call it closure. There's really no such thing, the families tell me. That no matter how much time goes past, there's really no closure. They just learn to live with the difference. They have a new identity after an air crash. They're the family of an air crash victim, and that's with them forever.

But they are now able to go into their sort of work or overdrive mode. They, you know, search for answers. They want to know what to do. They want to know how to honor their loved ones. And I can tell you, until the last person, the last passenger is accounted for -- and since there is indication that there -- you know, there's a piece of life raft here, a life vest there, families will hold out hope until the very end.

So once they have the debris field, it is important to work very efficiently, very quickly and thoroughly, but just -- and they will.

BERMAN: Right. SCHIAVO: Just keep at it until every person is identified. For example, TWA 800, the one off of Long Island in the water, there was remains from every single passenger identified.

BERMAN: Mary Schiavo, David Soucie, thanks so much. They will stay on that site, and I think they will follow these clues as long as they possibly can -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right, John. We're going to continue to track every development on the AirAsia disaster. There's plenty of conjecture out there about the incident. What do we know for sure? And what's still being sorted out? We'll take a look.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Good to have you back with us here on NEW DAY. Our continuing coverage continues now of the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501.

Officials in Indonesia are all but certain this morning that debris found off Borneo Island is from that missing Flight 8501. While the discovery brings a measure of closure and, of course, expected grief for the families, there's still so much that we don't know. Many you have been sending us questions using the hash tag #8501QS. We want to sift through some of the things, what we know and what we don't know with CNN analyst David Gallo. He's an oceanographer. He helped discover the wreckage of Air France Flight 447. Also here, CNN aviation analyst Les Abend, who is also a commercial pilot, an airline pilot, and contributing editor for "Flying" magazine.

Gentlemen, obviously we know that first and foremost, we all have heavy hearts today, knowing that these families are now learning the reality of this discovery, but it does, again, bring some measure of closure.

Let's talk about the investigation and things that we're going to be learning and things we know and don't know. First of all, we know in terms of the airplane, the pilot asked to increase altitude to 38,000 feet due to weather. What we don't know is how urgent the need was that he felt and why no mayday was called.

Les, what does that tell you as a commercial pilot about how quickly things may have transpired in the course of events that led to the crash?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, last night I had the opportunity to hear the first transmissions on the ground. They asked for push-back. They asked for the clearance and everything sounded very typical, very nonchalant...

PEREIRA: OK.

ABEND: ... like we would any normal day. So what I would like to see is if we can get to that last transmission when they requested...

PEREIRA: The all-important one. ABEND: ... right, the deviation in the altitude change, what the inflection of the voice was. If there's any way of determining that. And whether he was just doing that as a result of a bad ride that he was experiencing or he was seeing something on the radar. The urgency with reference to the mayday, that would be part of that.

And if the man was dealing with or the crew was dealing with a situation that was very urgent, the last people that they want to talk to is air traffic control. They want to control their airplane, so it's aviate, navigate, communicate is our action.

PEREIRA: Mayday calls won't always happen -- won't always happen?

ABEND: Mayday calls will not always happen, correct.

PEREIRA: All right. Let's go to another point of what we know and what we don't know. What we know, the actions of the pilot, as you just mentioned, were routine until the plane lost contact. What we don't know, though, David, is if any flight instruments were damaged by weather. You were instrumental in the Air France investigation. We know that the instruments played a critical role. What questions do you have? What thoughts do you have about perhaps the role of instruments in this?

DAVID GALLO, CNN ANALYST: Well we're going to have to wait, Michaela. I mean, in the case of Air France 447, the plane was found in several miles of water beneath the Atlantic Ocean. And I don't recall looking -- what the results were, looking at the cockpit instrumentation. But certainly, they did play an important role. And we're going to have to wait in this case to see until the fuselage is found and then the cockpit, to find out what the shape of all those instruments and then see what the black boxes tell us, the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, see what they have to tell us.

PEREIRA: We'll have to wait and see. Les, if your instruments go out as a pilot...

ABEND: Well, I find that unlikely, Michaela. But I think that there was some sort of mechanical situation. Was it a result of the thunderstorm? That perhaps they encountered.

Listen, the man had 20,000 hours of total time. This is an experienced guy, the captain. And even the co-pilot is able to -- they were handling an airplane probably in a stressful turbulent situation, but something went wrong. I just -- I feel that something in my gut says that beyond that, they were dealing with something else.

PEREIRA: Something, and you don't know what that is?

ABEND: Yes. And I hate to go to comparisons to 447...

PEREIRA: Right.

ABEND: ... at this time. Because it's way too preliminary in the investigation. PEREIRA: All right. Here's another point that we know. We know the

Java Sea is a major shipping area and relatively shallow. What we don't know, and it's interesting to me, is if anyone on nearby ships spotted a plane going down. We have not heard any reports, David, of ships in the area, other planes, fishermen even. We've heard nothing. What do you make of that?

GALLO: Yes. Well, it's again when you're looking at a map, it seems like a fairly small body of water.

PEREIRA: But it's not.

GALLO: But when you're out there, it's huge, and the horizon is often five or six miles away. So when you're out there it's a big ocean out there.

PEREIRA: All right. Let's take a look at some questions that we've been receiving on Twitter. And thanks to all of you that have been participating in this. Our first question comes from a viewer via Twitter. "Is there a possibility, Les, that lightning struck the plane and knocked out communication?" How realistic is that?

ABEND: It's not likely. Airplanes in this day and age are bonded where, if there is an electrical charge that hits the airplane, it's actually discharged out a wing tip or out through the tail, through a thing, a device called a static wick. It's actually a wire that comes off some of the extremities of the airplane.

Is it possible that it could have knocked out some form of the electrical system? Yes, it is, but I don't see that as being a likely scenario in this case.

PEREIRA: I think it's comforting to many of us who fly, knowing that an airplane can withstand a lightning strike.

David, another viewer question here from Twitter: "Why haven't we heard an explanation of why the plane's emergency beacon is not pinging?"

GALLO: Well, the ones, the -- you know, there's two sets of them. One of them won't go off in water. The other one, the EPerb (ph), has to be done manually, a system. So that would explain it.

Why there isn't something that's ejected upon impact? Is a good question. And I don't have an answer for that. That's an airline question.

PEREIRA: That's an airline question to be sure. Gentlemen, thank you so much.

And you know, we're going to ask you all of you at home to continue sending in your questions all morning. You can tweet them to us using the hashtag "#8501QS."

ROMANS: All right. Thank you, Michaela. We are breaking down every new detail as we follow breaking news. Bodies and debris have been recovered, believed to be from AirAsia Flight 8501. We'll look at where the search is now focused and how the expanded search could have helped speed up the process. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

PEREIRA: Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501. Once again, we welcome our viewers around the globe and around the U.S. So many developments overnight. Here is what we know about what search crews have found so far.

Crews recovering several bodies, along with an emergency exit door and aluminum cuttings in the ocean. Debris was found in the water, six miles from where the plane was last spotted on radar Saturday morning.

AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes sending condolences to families of victims via Twitter, saying that his heart is full of sadness.

Meanwhile, relatives and friends of the 162 passengers and crew were called in to receive that grim news. Several of them were overcome with emotion.

For the very latest, let's turn to Andrew Stevens live from Indonesia. Heartbreaking to understand that these people are learning the fate of their loved ones.

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You can't imagine, Michaela, what they must have been going through. They were called in. There was a live press conference, which has been relayed to them. It was from coming from Jakarta. They were taking -- and that's where they heard from the head of the search-and-rescue operations here in Indonesia, that he said that there was a 95 percent chance that the debris that had been recovered or had been seen, spotted and photographed, from that area just six miles from where the plane last made contact when the pilots radioed to change their course, just six miles away, that 95 percent certain that this debris came from AirAsia 8501.

Now you can imagine the scene. I was speaking to a man there whose friend was on board. Not only was his friend on board, but his friend's wife and three children.