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New Day

Jordan Vows 'Relentless' War Against ISIS; Secretary Kerry Meets with Ukrainian President; Health Insurer Anthem Hacked; Judge Tells Victim's Mom Not to Cry; TransAsia Death Toll Rises to 32; Was Train Fire Fueled by Gasoline on Third Rail

Aired February 05, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Jordanians want to increase the number of airstrikes they are carrying out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the end of the day, it's going to take a regional force beyond Jordan.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need people on the ground to help us with the intelligence, real-time intelligence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's got to have moderate Arab nations that are bringing this horse to bear.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The final seconds of TransAsia Airways flight 235.

PILOT: Mayday, mayday, mayday. Engine flameout.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A flameout means that the engine has lost its combustion.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This toddler somehow survived.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Screaming, yelling, it was just total panic.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Smoke and flames poured out of a packed Metro- North train.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One, it was the train on the train tracks and what caused this accident to be failed?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Pereira.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good day, welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Thursday, February 5, just before 6:00 in the East. And Jordan is vowing a relentless against the terrorists as revenge for the killing of their pilot. That could mean airstrikes on targets outside Syria. Jordan's King Abdullah telling U.S. lawmakers he plans to pursue ISIS until Jordan's military runs out of fuel and bullets. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Now, Jordan's escalation comes as a

crucial Arab ally pulls out of the coalition. The United Arab Emirates says it is suspending their role in airstrikes against ISIS until they're certain that their pilots would be saved if shot down. In response, the Pentagon adding search-and-rescue teams in northern Iraq to protect pilots.

We begin our coverage of all this this morning with CNN's Atika Shubert. She is live in Amman, Jordan, for us.

What do we know, Atika?

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, know that King Abdullah at the moment enjoys full public support to hit back at ISIS and hit them hard.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHUBERT (voice-over): Jordan's King Abdullah now vowing a, quote, "relentless" war on ISIS. A U.S. official tells CNN the Arab kingdom seeking to launch more airstrikes against the terrorist group.

The king in line with his people's cries for revenge, this possible increase in fire power a direct retaliation for one of their own, pilot Mu'ath al-Kaseasbeh. It's still unclear what form their earth- shaking retaliation might take.

Meanwhile, word that the United Arab Emirates, a key player in the coalition against ISIS, suspended its airstrikes after the Jordanian pilot was captured in December. The White House is downplaying the loss of the UAE's airpower.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We certainly have appreciated the wide range of commitments that the United Arab Emirates has made to this broad international coalition, including their military commitments. But you know, John, I can tell you that the pace of operations in Syria has not slowed.

SHUBERT: The administration instead focusing on the coalition being at least 60 countries strong, the U.S. conducting a large percentage of the airstrikes.

This as the U.S. military moves some search-and-rescue assets into northern Iraq.

And just yesterday at his confirmation hearing to become the next secretary of defense, Ashton Carter promising to resolve the U.S. delays in arms sales to Jordan.

ASHTON CARTER, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: We need partners on the ground to beat ISIS.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SHUBERT: Now King Abdullah, in addition to planning his next military moves, is also expected any moment now to arrive in Karak. And I believe we have some live pictures. This is the village where the Kaseasbeh family comes from. The Kaseasbeh family, of course, the family of that Jordanian pilot. King Abdullah is coming not only to pay his respects and to give his condolence to the family, but to make sure he has their support and the support of prominent families and tribes across Jordan to step up on those airstrikes against ISIS -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Atika Shubert, thanks so much for all of that background. Let's put it in context for you. We want to bring in CNN political commentator Peter Beinart. He's a contributing editor to Atlantic Media and senior fellow for the New America Foundation. Also joining us, the CNN global affairs analyst Lieutenant Colonel James Reese. He's the founder of Tiger Swan and former U.S. Delta Force commander.

Gentlemen, thanks so much for being here. Peter, let me start with you. Is Jordan's public commitment to being relentless now against ISIS, is this a turning point?

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think "turning point" might be too strong, but I definitely think that we're going to see a more aggressive campaign. This was a fight that the regime believed in, but the public was relatively hostile to, seeing -- believing that Jordan was kind of being dragged along by -- by the United States and its western allies. I think now you see that the country of Jordan as a whole, at least its Bedouin population, is very strongly invested in this.

I think the fact that we have a new and more aggressive defense secretary in Ashton Carter is probably also going to lead, I think, to new forms of aggressive action against ISIS.

CAMEROTA: Colonel Reese, will Jordan's relentless campaign, as they're calling it, against ISIS be able to make a difference against ISIS?

LT. COL. JAMES REESE (RET.), CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Alisyn, it will. It will, and I believe it can. However, they have to have support. Jordan has a great military, but Jordan is one of the poorer Arab nations, compared to the UAE and Saudi who have the oil.

So they're going to need some financial support. They're going to need some extra weapons and extra enabling equipment to allow them to do. But Jordan has the resolve, and they have the military to do it.

CAMEROTA: Peter, the UAE and Morocco have announced that they are suspending their operations against ISIS. Why are they pulling out?

BEINART: Well, there's been some controversy about fears on their behalf about whether, if their pilots go down, they will be rescued. There was some controversy about how long it took the U.S. and others to try to rescue this Jordanian pilot.

I suspect that the -- I think there's some evidence that the U.S. is already starting to make moves to try to reassure its Arab allies that the U.S. will make even greater efforts to get any pilot who is shot down. But as one can understand it, think about it: after this gruesome video, countries -- Arab countries are particularly concerned about what could happen to their members.

CAMEROTA: Colonel Reese, of course there's no guarantees in this war and if a pilot is shot down. But the Pentagon does say that they're moving troops into a better position in northern Iraq, in the event that a pilot is shot down. Is this a simple-enough fix to get the UAE and Morocco back on board?

REESE: Well, Alisyn, it does help. I mean, look at it this way. Every pilot knows that when they cross the -- you know, the enemy lines into Syria, or western Iraq, they know there's risk.

However, we've been launching combat search-and-rescue or staging it down in Kuwait, which is over 800 miles away, if you look at Raqqah as the capital of ISIS. Now we're moving some assets up to the Kurdistan area. That's about 400 miles away. If you've got some put over in Jordan, you'd be about 250. But this would be a great place for the Turks to get involved, let us use one of their border air fields, and you'd be about only 100 miles away. And this is in the Syria aspect. And again, I look at Raqqah as their capital.

And, you know, because we don't have really anyone on the ground in Syria, our intelligence is very low. So this to me is the major concerning aspect if we lost an aircraft over the Syria air space.

In the Iraq air space, at least there's Iraqi ground forces in those that can move towards that crashed pilot, which has -- which reduces the risk.

CAMEROTA: You know, we talked about the coalition air strikes, but really, the lion's share falls to the United States. We have a graphic to show how much the United States has done, versus over countries. Eighty percent of the air strikes have been conducted by the U.S., 20 percent conducted by the coalition.

Peter, do you think that Jordan will change that equation?

BEINART: I think Jordan will probably increase its airstrikes, but I don't think that airstrikes alone are the most important thing that Jordan can contribute. I think intelligence is very, very important. Jordan is closer to the ground than we are and has a very good intelligence service that I think could help us.

And I think another key point is these tribes. You know, they're powerful tribes, not just in Jordan, but stretch across borders into Iraq, into Syria. Remember, the Sunni -- the Sunni awakening that defeated al Qaeda in 2006 was because powerful Sunni tribes turned against al Qaeda. Could there be some way of activating some of these powerful tribes in Syria and Iraq against ISIS?

CAMEROTA: Colonel Reese, you have a theory that other countries will not fully participate in the coalition and commit to doing so until the U.S. says it will take out Bashar al-Assad. What do you mean?

REESE: Well, Alisyn, I'm going to keep banging my drum that I have now for months. What I believe is, is everyone is trying to find out what is our policy in Syria and the Assad regime. We've been talking about it for months. The Turks have been very adamant about it. They want to know what we're going to do. They want a no-fly zone in there to help protect these aspects. Because when we put these assets in, we even don't know what Assad is going to do.

So I think this continues to be the center of gravity. No one is talking about it. We need to bring people to bear. We need to bring the coalition down with the key Arab states, the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Jordanians; sit down, figure that out, have a plan and we need to go after it.

CAMEROTA: Colonel James Reese, Peter Beinart. Thanks so much for all the expertise. Nice to talk to you this morning.

Let's go over to Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Alisyn.

Right now Secretary of State John Kerry is meeting behind closed doors with Ukraine's president in Kiev, as violence in that country's eastern region escalates once again. Chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto is traveling with Kerry, with the secretary; joins us now live from Kiev with the very latest -- Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela.

Secretary Kerry arriving here in Kiev during very bad weather and a dire situation on the ground. We've got a briefing on the plane in from a senior State Department official described the situation on the ground as a dire security situation with a grave acceleration of the fighting. And this really picked up in the last two or three days, Russian and pro-Russian separatist forces gaining hundreds of square miles of ground. Lots of civilian casualties, and the front of this fighting moving from eastern Ukraine further and further west.

This is a true crisis, a true war, really, in Europe today. And that's a crisis.

Also, the senior State Department official telling us on the plane that right now, in terms of Russia's interest in a negotiated solution, in the words of a senior State Department official, Russia failing that test miserably and saying that it's the Russian people who are paying for what was described as "this imperial adventure." So very strong words coming from U.S. officials.

The question is what is the response? We know that Ukrainian officials want more help, in particular lethal weapons. But that debate still going on in the administration.

What Secretary Kerry is arriving with here today, is $16.5 million in humanitarian aid. But that not likely to satisfy the Ukrainians. I wouldn't be surprised if behind closed doors, he's hearing requests for more help. The real question here is how to help Ukrainian forces push back

against this Russian and this pro-Russian advance. They don't feel they have the weapons now, and there are voices inside the administration who are pushing for more lethal arms for Ukrainian forces.

But that decision far away at this point in the Obama administration. We're going to be here through the evening today, Michaela, and we'll be back with more.

Chris, back to you.

CUOMO: All right, Jim, let us know what comes out of the meeting and be safe over there.

All right. For the rest of us, listen up. Eighty million of us have Anthem Insurance. If you're one, your personal information has been stolen. America's second largest insurer is the latest victim of a massive data breach.

Chief business correspondent and "EARLY START" anchor Christine Romans is here, what do we need to know?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: This is so big. OK, if you are a customer of Anthem -- that means Anthem Blue Cross, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Amerigroup and Healthlink -- this is what the hackers stole. It's a sophisticated external hack of Anthem. This is what they got. They got names, birth dates, medical I.D.s, Social Security numbers, addresses, email addresses, and pay information. Employment information.

What wasn't hacked, credit card data and medical information. But you can see all of that data can be used to construct a new identity. Very difficult if the hacker sells that on the black market and someone uses it for identity fraud.

Now it doesn't look yet as though this information is available on the black market just yet. But again, we know these cyberhacks are a long game, a long con. And we don't know when that could, when that could happen.

Here's what the company says you need to do. Wait for them to contact you if your information has been stolen. They will contact you, first with an email, then with a letter. There will be identity fraud protection, credit monitoring that they will supply for free.

Even the CEO of this company says his information was breached, which doesn't make him feel any better. But it just shows you that every one of these companies, insurers, hospitals, banks, they are being bombarded every day with hackers around the world trying to steal your information. Your information is valuable. And 80 million of you, up to 80 million of you, it's out there.

PEREIRA: That's big. Christine Romans.

Breaking this morning, there are reports of at least three people killed and dozens more wounded following rocket attacks on the Syrian capital of Damascus. A witness telling CNN he counted 56 explosions coming from the east. We are told the shelling hit civilian and government areas, including schools and Damascus University. Local media reports the militant group Islam Army was behind that attack.

CAMEROTA: Well, the hunt is on this morning to find the suspects who shot two students at a Maryland high school basketball game. Gunfire rang out last night inside Frederick High School. The school temporarily put on lockdown, preventing anyone from leaving. The injured students, both male, taken to a hospital in Baltimore. They are expected to be OK.

CUOMO: All right. To the Aaron Hernandez murder trial now. This trial continues to surprise.

First, we learned that sisters were on opposite sides of the case, and now the judge has scolded the mother of victim Odin Lloyd for getting emotional.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's very important that you manage during this time you are testifying, to retain control of your emotions and not cry while you're looking at any photo that may be shown to you, do you understand that?

URSULA WARD, MOTHER OF ODIN LLOYD: Yes, ma'am.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Ursula Ward understandably choked up when she saw a picture of her son's dead body. The judge telling Ward it is important, as you heard, to not lose it in front of the jury.

PEREIRA: Is that reasonable?

CUOMO: It is reasonable, as a request. But unusual, especially when the main reason you have the victim's mother up there is to elicit emotion and make people know who was lost.

CAMEROTA: For the prosecutor.

CUOMO: Yes.

CAMEROTA: The defense doesn't want you to do that. But still, I don't know how you tell a mom not to do that.

CUOMO: Like that. Because she just did it.

CAMEROTA: I don't know if it will work.

CUOMO: This is a very interesting trial dynamic going on here. The balance of who he is versus trying to keep the system pure.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely.

CUOMO: Worth watching.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

Meanwhile, investigators in Taiwan studying the black-box data from that TransAsia plane that plunged into the river. What's on those recordings? And will the mayday call from the cockpit provide the critical clue? You can hear it for yourself next.

CUOMO: And the key question in that train crash is how did that SUV come to be on the track, leading to one of the deadliest rail accidents in New York State history. We have the latest from the investigation, ahead.

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PEREIRA: Good to have you back with us here on NEW DAY.

Critical new developments this morning from two deadly crashes. We begin with the shocking TransAsia plane crash captured close up on camera in Taiwan. Thirty-two people are dead. Now we're hearing for the first time the final chilling mayday call from the cockpit.

Let's bring in Anna Coren, who's live in Taipei.

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Michaela, it certainly was a chilling mayday call, made just moments before TransAsia Flight 235 crashed into the cold waters of Keelung River behind me, here in the busy bustling city of Taipei. You know, it is a miracle that anyone survived. And yet, almost a quarter of the passengers escaped with their lives.

Well divers have been scouring these waters all day, looking for the 12 bodies still unaccounted for.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COREN (voice-over): Newly-released hotel security video captures the haunting hours before a group of Chinese tourists board the deadly TransAsia Flight 235. The tourists checking out of their rooms en route to the airport. This, as emergency crews continue scouring the river for bodies. Out of 58 people on board, astonishingly 15 survived, including this toddler.

DR. KRISTY ARBOGAST, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: A child has several advantages in a crash environment. Their bones are more pliable. So they can withstand forces, higher forces without fracture.

COREN: Over half confirmed dead. And the rest, investigators fear, may have floated down river.

One of the survivors says, quote, "I felt something wasn't right. Something was wrong with the engine. Because I always take this flight. I told the girl beside me to quickly release her seat belt, hold onto the chair in front, and cover her head with clothes. Not long, after the plane went down. It happened shortly after takeoff around 11 a.m. in the morning. Someone in the cockpit calling out for help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mayday, mayday. Engine flameout.

COREN: The plane losing power, and you can see in this dash cam video, the left wing dips, appearing to have stalled. Seconds later, the plane's wing clip an oncoming taxi and the wall of a bridge before plummeting into the river. Taiwan's civil aeronautics situation says the plane is less than a year old and just days ago completed a safety check.

Meanwhile, from a pilots of this type of aircraft say it's possible to land safely with one engine, as long as you increase air speed.

ALASTAIR ROSENSCHEIN, AVIATION CONSULTANT: You try and maintain the engine alt air speed, which should give you a reasonable rate of climb to clear all the objects that you might see. However, in this case, that didn't happen, and so something has gone horribly wrong.

COREN: Answers hopefully found in the plane's black boxes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COREN: Now maintenance crew looked at that plane and gave it the OK to fly. And that was just minutes before it took off. Authorities now very much focusing on engine failure as the cause of this crash -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: We've seen that video now probably 25 times, and it is still just so stunning to watch. Thank you for that report.

Now to the fiery train wreck just north of New York City that killed seven people. This morning investigators trying to piece together what led to a woman's SUV getting stuck on the tracks. Deborah Feyerick is here with more. What do we know this morning?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are learning a little bit more this morning. Family friends did identify the SUV driver as Ellen Brody, a mother with three grown daughters. She was on the tracks when the crossing gates closed. And an eyewitness who spoke to local officials says she got out of the vehicle when the gates came down, looked at the back of the car, then got inside the vehicle. But instead of reversing, she went forward, putting her directly in the path of that oncoming train.

Now, as for the rail gates -- we've all seen them. They're wooden. They're easily broken. They're designed that way if a car gets stuck. They're also supposed to lift up if it does come down on a vehicle. So that's going to be a key area of investigation.

The NTSB said the train dragged the vehicle 1,000 feet tearing up sections of the third rail which perforated the first car and part of the second car, contributing to some of the deaths of the other passengers. Gasoline from the SUV also caused a massive explosion and the raging flames and the thick smoke.

As for the NTSB, they're on the ground. They have been able to retrieve recording devices which monitor rail signals and crossing gates. They got the SUV out of the way, as you see. They've also moved the train, and investigators could begin to interview Metro- North rail workers, including the conductor, who appears to have helped people out of the train before he himself became overwhelmed with smoke -- Alisyn, Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Deb, thank you very much. They certainly have a lot to track down there.

But let's figure out what we know and what it means so far. We've got Mary Schiavo, CNN aviation analyst and the former inspector general of the Department of Transportation and Mr. David Soucie, CNN safety analyst and former FAA safety inspector. Good to have you both this morning.

Let's start with the plane crash, shall we? We know the last words, "Mayday, mayday. Engine flameout."

Mary Schiavo, this squares exactly with what you thought was happening by looking at that left side propeller. Does that mean that what we see in the maneuvering of that plane wasn't just distress, but a pilot trying to avoid things, trying to mitigate the circumstances?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Yes, absolutely. And when you look at the radar tracings now that are available, it's clear that he was diverting somewhat from the usual departure, but it appeared he was trying to follow the river, which is part of the course on departure, but had made turns around at least one building.

Now that very last turn, that very sharp turn, I think at that point the plane had lost so much lift, and it was out of control. That was not a controlled turn. But I think the pilot clearly was trying to dodge the buildings and get the plane to the water, hoping to save lives.

CUOMO: We're going to have to figure out why the engine flamed out. That's obviously critical. But we also want to assess what was going on with the pilots.

David, you've taken a closer look at this, using the data and creating an animation for us. Let's put up the animation and talk us through it.

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: This is an animation that was built from the black boxes on an Embraer, which is a twin-engine turboprop just the same as this one. This is an actual accident that occurred during a training flight in 2010.

You can see how the movement of the aircraft is almost identical. What happened in this is that the left engine throttle was brought back in a training exercise. The engine then subsequently failed. Therefore, the auto feather system, which is going to be real important here, the auto feather system did not work, creating so much drag on the left side that it actually broke the suction or broke the air over that wing on the left side, causing it to stall. And it then banks off making a steep turn, as Mary said. This was uncontrollable at this point. So therefore, the aircraft rolled to the left, landing upside-down, exactly the same as this aircraft crash recently.

CUOMO: To follow on this, David, does that mean, because we have to figure out accountability here. Right? Is it all about the engine or is it about what was done with the plane? In that explanation, you're talking about throttling back, creating a stall; creating a situation where feathering become irrelevant. Do we know enough at this point to know whether or not this pilot made errors that led to the distress?

SOUCIE: We don't know enough yet. The primary, secondary, and tertiary causes are things that they'll be looking at.

First, the engine obviously went out. That could have been from a number of different reasons, from fuel starvation to bird ingestion. So that's No. 1.

No. 2 is how the pilot reacted to that? Did he make the proper moves? Did he maintain his air speed where he's supposed to? And did he also try to find a place to land?

Now remember, this aircraft in the normal situation, when that left engine goes out, as long as you maintain the air speed and don't try to climb too quickly, the aircraft is perfectly capable of staying airborne and making a circle around and coming back and landing. That's not what happened here. So there was at least a secondary, possibly tertiary cause here in which the auto feather system, which aligns the propeller with the direction of flight, so that it doesn't create excess drag, that appears to have not worked. Because in that video, what I see is that it is still in a flat position. Not aligned.

CUOMO: So as we fill in the facts, we'll know even better. But also, we're getting closer to knowing what we need to know to figure out the specifics. David, thank you.

Mary, I know you were shaking your head, along with what -- nodding your head along with what David was saying. So I take that nodding as agreement.

Let's move on to the train crash thing, because I don't have time left. We're learning things about that also. The key question is: how did that car come to be on the tracks? Is that about crossing gates or is it about driver's recklessness? That's going to be saved for another day, because we don't know enough yet.

But in terms of why this happened, is there any chance that it is just an accident?

SCHIAVO: Well, I mean, just an accident but a very preventable accident. There are about 270 railroad and car crossing accidents per year, and almost all of them occur because, for some reason, the driver has gotten onto the tracks, has gone around the gates, which is illegal. And there are 218,000 of these rail grade crossings in the country.

So the issue is going to be if the driver was somehow confused; if the gates didn't work, et cetera. And you know, this is not an isolated incident. It's a problem that the federal government has been working on for two decades, and has brought the accident rate down by about two-thirds.

CUOMO: All right. Well, look, there's a lot more to unpack here. You know what? Please both of you come back at 8 a.m. in the show, so we can keep discussing this. Because you know, we're going to have to figure out how to make these trains safer. We keep learning ways they are preventable. Reports come out, but they don't come out for like a year from the NTSB, so how do we make them safer today? We'll talk about it later.

David Soucie, thank you very much.

Mary Schiavo, as always -- Mick.

PEREIRA: All right, Chris.

New Englanders are finally digging out from over four -- over four, in fact -- feet of snow. More storms, however, could be on the way. One this weekend could really make a mess. We're going to tell you where those systems are heading, straight ahead.

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