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Bad Weather Hampered Search for Flight 8501; AirAsia Victims from Same School; Answer Viewer Questions on AirAsia; Jeb Bush Leads GOP for 2016; Obama Vacation Forces Move of Wedding

Aired December 29, 2014 - 13:30   ET

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

ALASTAIR ROSENSCHEIN, AVIATION ANALYST & FORMER PILOT (vis telephone): This particular aircraft was flying in a particular of time when the weather was particularly bad and certainly from the radar pictures we've seen on the television pictures, it shows that some of the swells were indeed very large and tens of miles across which would have made it very difficult to fly around them. Normally, one cannot go quite easily around these storms. And I have not flown in this particularly rough weather even with the thunderstorms that do get through with the aircraft-based radar systems.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: So, Les, that said, if this plane is somehow forced in or does travel through this air, through this storm, this is something that -- even though certainly the goal of a pilot is to avoid this, this is something that pilots are trained to deal with, right?

LES ABEND, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, FLY MAGAZINE & BOEING 777 CAPTAIN: Well, it's something that we're experienced at doing just by sheer operation all the time and the experience that we have with professional aviation. In this day and age, we have sophisticated onboard radar as in AirAsia 8501. This radar adjusts automatically to show the intensity of the storms. You can take over the automatic function and adjust it. It becomes an art. A lot of us are familiar with that, adjusting the tilt of the radar to see where the most intense areas are, right or left or up or down. But this is a very typical process that we go through to avoid weather and keep it at a comfortable, safe ride for our passengers.

KEILAR: Right now, there seems to be a working theory that the plane stalled, meaning that the plane is essentially ascending and the speed is reduced and it's unsustainable for flight. How much credence do you give that theory?

ABEND: It looks legitimate. We here at CNN have not verified that, that I'm aware of. I guess the 105 knots was what was said but that would probably be ground speed. I don't know what the tail wind would be at that time. So the airplane doesn't care what it is doing across the ground at that altitude. It cares what is happening across its wings. If indeed it was 105 knots, that would certainly be a very slow air speed and if that was the case, to me, no pilot is going to fly transport category aircraft at that speed intentionally. So something possibly could have gone wrong, maybe analogous, similar to the Air France 447 A-330 accident in 2009. It's hard to speculate at this point in time. We just don't have enough information. KEILAR: Alastair, you've written that this plane will be found, that

this is not going to remain a mystery. How certain are you and why do you say that?

ROSENSCHEIN: Well, you know, I'm not absolutely certain, but historically we do find the aircraft. The Malaysia MH-370 was rather an exception. The main reason is that they only had an hour and a half fuel onboard at the time that the aircraft disappeared off radar. Now, if it indeed would have descended and, therefore, went all the way down to sea level or ground level, that is probably why I felt reasonably confident that they would find it. How quickly they will find it, I don't know. Obviously, I can't be certain. No one can be certain in these cases but, you know, no one expected the previous Malaysian MH-370 to never have been found after all of these months. It's quite extraordinary. So that's why I just feel that this is not -- there's no likelihood it will be a repeat of that instance.

KEILAR: The challenges of finding these planes are much lower, is the expectation, than in the Malaysia Air flight.

Alastair Rosenschein, Les Abend, thank you for joining us.

And we're learning more about those that were aboard this AirAsia flight. Stories are streaming in from family members and friends of passengers aboard this AirAsia flight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Among the 162 passengers and crew aboard AirAsia flight 8501, three were young classmates from the same school.

Our Rosa Flores spoke with that school's principal.

Tell us about these kids, Rosa.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Brianna, such a tough conversation with this principal. She says she knew the students and their parents. This is five people on this flight that she knew. She's torn. She says it's a very tough time for the community. They are hoping for the best.

Take a listen to what she told me about one of these students.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIE WONG, PRINCIPAL: She was always fun and joy she jokes with her friends. We are all so shocked with this news. We are praying every day and every second and then we are waiting for good news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now, again, this is from a principal that knew three of the passengers on board, three passengers and their parents.

Brianna, she tells me this community is coming together. They've seen a lot of posts on Facebook and social media and they are really not answering and they trying to just keep it together and they are hoping for the best. They are still hoping that they are alive.

KEILAR: The daughter, Rosa, of one of the pilots apparently sent out a heartbreaking tweet. What did she say?

FLORES: Let me read this to you, Brianna. It really is heartbreaking. This one is very, very touching and you're looking at it on your screen. She says, "Dad, please come home. I still need you. Please return, Dad. Dad, come home, Dad. You have to come home."

Now, these are very tough words for a young girl to say on social media about her father. In another tweet she also calls him a hero, Brianna. Very tough for this family and for all of the other families who have loved ones on board this plane.

KEILAR: It's heartbreaking.

Rosa Flores, thank you.

We do want to let you know that you can ask some questions of our experts. There's still time to get those sent in. Send your questions. Tweet them or #8501qs on Twitter.

And a little later, Jeb Bush announced that he's looking at a potential 2016 run and then a peculiar thing happened. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The disappearance of flight 8501 has raised many of the same questions that surrounded the disappearance last March of Malaysia flight 370. How can satellite technology track a cell phone but lose a large airliner? We've pulled your questions together from Twitter. We've asked you to use #8501qs and we're going to put the questions to our panel of experts.

Rejoining us, we have CNN aviation analysts, Peter Goelz and Mary Schiavo, and CNN safety analyst, David Soucie.

Jump in if you know the answer to these questions. This comes from Steven. He tweeted, "Have some of the airlines become overly confident that their planes and pilots can fly through and around severe storms?"

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: I don't think overly confident is the correct phrase. Pilots avoid flying through thunderstorms at virtually all costs. Occasionally, you're trapped in one, there's no way out, you've got to go through it. But, no, I don't think there's a sense of overconfidence simply because the planes can make it. The primary goal, comfort and safety of the passenger.

KEILAR: Mary, David, have you seen any sort of overconfidence when it comes to bad weather?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Sure. I mean, I certainly have.

(CROSSTALK) SCHIAVO: Go ahead, David.

KEILAR: Go ahead, Mary. Go ahead, Mary.

SCHIAVO: Oh. OK. Well, I certainly have but in a different way. I think there's a cultural difference and the risk of having the uproar from raising the cultural issues, you know, in the United States I've had many accidents where the first officer has started to challenge the pilot and was, you know, it wasn't a welcome comment and that all changed with the crew resource management and they will challenge each other. That happened in Little Rock, Arkansas, American Airlines crash, June 1, 1999. After that, it was a big push. In some cultures that is not welcome. We have a very pilot in command with a huge amount of hours and a co-pilot with lesser hours and we have three carriers now, all from Malaysia, for example, flying over a war zone. MH-19 that was shot done. That's a serious question in judgment. Same thing here, entering a thunderstorm. It's a serious question of judgment.

KEILAR: What do you think, David?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, I think the question of overconfidence is a very good question but I might rephrase it and call it an over reliance on the automation systems. Peter Goelz has been talking about this as well, the fact that the pilots are relying on the equipment and technology. The more you make it safer and automated, the less you rely on your own instinctive abilities in managing the aircraft in difficult situations such as this.

KEILAR: I want to go to another tweet, sort of alerting my crew in the control room, the Jacob Rossi tweet. He wants to know, "Why, in this day and age, do we rely on the physical recovery of black boxes? Flight data should be continuously streamed to the cloud."

This isn't novel. This is something that we talked about back in March when we were talking about the Malaysia Air flight.

What do you think, David?

SOUCIE: I'd like to defer this to Mary, because she's been talking about this for almost decades. Excuse me for the age reference, Mary.

SCHIAVO: It's OK.

(LAUGHTER)

SOUCIE: But I know it's been a subject to you and for Peter Goelz as well.

So I'm going to defer to them.

KEILAR: All right, Mary?

SCHIAVO: David is right. It's been on my radar screen and something I've been bugging about for years because it's so antiquated. The black boxes were invented by Australians, by the way. There's no need to have that when we have streaming data. I do a lot of accident investigation work and it's frustrating to know that we have to rely on this antiquated system. The flip side of that is, many people say we don't have enough satellite, enough bandwidth, technology, but that's a cop out because right now if we started the fitting of all new planes for it and required it for new planes, I think only about a sixth of the planes that have the ability actually subscribe to the service where they can do this and it's way over due. It's flying in the dark ages and there's no excuse for it. None.

KEILAR: Here's a question for you, Peter. Jay asks, "Any eyewitness reports of anyone seeing anything? This is a major shipping corridor. Fishermen, boats, anything?"

GOELZ: We have not received any information from the Indonesians about, one, eyewitnesses or anyone on the ground or, two, how many different radars were tracking this aircraft. The Indonesians have been quiet on the technical side. I think it's time for them to start speaking. We have not received any reports.

KEILAR: All right.

And I want to throw this one out to all of you because this fascinates me. Craig Blanton writing, "How can we track asteroids, comets billions of miles from earth yet we continue to lose aircraft. Where is the technology?"

GOELZ: Well, I'll take the shot and then go to Mary. The technology is there. It's the question of the will. And, as Mary indicated, we have been fighting for this for a long time. And it's not as though -- they say, well, the data pipes and the satellite capacity is not there. You can program the transmission so that it only starts to stream when a plane gets outside of a certain set of parameters. It would not be a challenge. And the airlines, and particularly IKAO (ph), which is just dreadful in terms of its speed, they need to act now.

KEILAR: We certainly could answer many more questions but I have to end it there. And appreciate all of you being there for us.

Peter Goelz, Mary Schiavo and David Soucie, thank you.

Don't miss "Vanished: The Mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370." That airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern.

Could we looking now -- as we turn to politics -- at another Bush v. Clinton showdown? We have a new poll that shows Jeb Bush with a commanding lead as the GOP front-runner for president, but how well does he do up against Hillary Clinton? We have some interesting numbers to share with you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: To politics now. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush the clear leader in a new CNN poll on the respective Republican field for 2016. Bush, who recently announced he's considering a run, tops the poll with 23 percent. We have New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in second. Dr. Ben Carson is in third. Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee round out the top five. But remember, none of the front runners have officially declared for the 2016 presidential race.

Let me bring in Zeke Miller, political reporter for "Time" magazine; Rebecca Berg, the political correspondent for "The Washington Examiner"; and CNN senior digital correspondent, Chris Moody.

Zeke, I guess this isn't a surprise that you have Jeb Bush as the early front-runner.

ZEKE MILLER, POLITICAL REPORTER, TIME MAGAZINE: Yes, he's the son and brother of former two presidents. Name recognition alone. He's also the front runner with the donors. Actually surprising to see the base like him as much as the donors do. But he has the ability to reach out to the donor community and bringing a significant amount of the establishment -- his support comes from the chamber of commerce Republicans, the type of Republicans that you see that fill the mainstream part of the party. He'll have trouble with the base, the folks who vote for Rand Paul or Ben Carson. This is a good show of support for him. With Chris Christie coming in second the two combined it's a good indication the Republican Party is still a mainstream Republican party.

KEILAR: Yeah.

MILLER: The Tea Party doesn't have control right now.

KEILAR: So, Rebecca, what's the advantage -- it seems, on the Democratic side, you have Hillary Clinton hanging back now a little bit more than we thought she would initially. Do any of the kind, I guess, on any side but talk to us about the Republican side as well, do they get an advantage if they declare first?

REBECCA BERG, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Well, absolutely, because you look at these early polls before there are any official candidates, there are very few official candidates, maybe Jim Webb on the Democratic side.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: One person. I think he gets in our poll. That's not great. That's not where you want to be.

BERG: Some for Jim Webb. But for the serious candidates on both sides, basically these polls at this point are reflective of their name I.D. Who has the biggest name I.D.? With Jeb Bush, the Bush name, he's basically an incumbent with his father and brother having been president before. Hillary Clinton, you can say the same. Then you have people like Paul Ryan, pulling very well. He's been a vice presidential candidate. If you look at this same poll, so this was a "The Washington Post"/"ABC News" poll from 2006 at this time, if you look at the Republican field, the top three were Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. So Mitt Romney, a former, you know, governor of Massachusetts, who ended up winning the nomination in 2012, and Palin and Huckabee known from the FOX News circuit. It's a question of name I.D. at this point. KEILAR: Let's talk about Mitt Romney, Chris. If he were sort of in the mix here, if he was included in the poll, how would that shift things?

CHRIS MOODY, CNN SENIOR DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: One important thing is Mitt Romney was in our CNN poll last month and got about 20 percent and they did not put him in this one and that's right after Jeb Bush made his announcement he's thinking about running and propelled Jeb into that space, basically the so-called establishment candidate. Shows there's a want and a need to fill for that and with Mitt Romney not in the poll at all that's where Jeb Bush can really rise up and shine. On the name I.D., one anomaly we've had is the rise of Ben Carson pulling at 7 percent to 10 percent. You were talking about name I.D., Hillary Clinton has an incredible name I.D. Jeb Bush as well. But Ben Carson? Where did that come from?

(CROSSTALK)

BERG: We were noting that he was a FOX News contributor so he had --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: That's how he built some of his name recognition, right?

MILLER: You poll him in Iowa, he polls better in Iowa and New Hampshire. He has been there frequently. He has staff in each of the states. He can be a real surprise as we start hitting the road.

KEILAR: Maybe if -- I think a lot of people look at Ben Carson and don't think this is a guy who will make it in the long run, but this is someone who could shake up the race if he doesn't make it in the long run, right? With some of the folks that he appeals to, with the fact that he can play the role of upset in Iowa?

MOODY: He can make people nervous who are not only the establishment candidates but also vying for that top conservative candidate, the hard right-winger. It's very difficult -- it will be a real challenge environment.

MILLER: A spoiler then for, I think a Rand Paul or Ted Cruz, who can go the distance but don't have that sort of support with the grassroots.

KEILAR: I want to end here on a bit of a talker. There's a story coming out of Hawaii, first reported by "Bloomberg." The president is vacations in Hawaii. And he played golf this weekend. And it appears according to "Bloomberg" that his golf game forced a couple, both of whom happened to be in the Army, to move the location of their wedding. So you can imagine what an upset this would be as it was initially to the bride.

But what do you guys think about this? Weigh in.

BERG: The amazing thing, not only did the president's golf game force this couple move to their wedding, when they heard he was going to be in Hawaii during the time of their wedding -- (CROSSTALK)

BERG: -- they invited the president to their wedding and he declined. He declined their invitation and made them move their wedding. It's adding insult to injury.

KEILAR: Can I just say something in fairness? Because I was e- mailing someone and I thought, there is no way the president knew --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: -- he was forcing them to move their wedding. My suspicions were confirmed by one source who said the president didn't know, the White House didn't know, and the golf course made this move without telling the president.

MILLER: The couple was warned in advance.

KEILAR: I guess it's standard.

MILLER: It's standard. They know this happens every year.

KEILAR: Yeah.

MOODY: Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and let's say he no idea, no staffers had no idea. Still, the optics are bad. Serviceman, servicewoman having their wedding. Golf is involved. President Obama is taking some hits on that. Even if maybe a staffer can get a slap on the wrist for not knowing this it looks bad.

KEILAR: It's not going to happen again. And the president did call the couple, the bride was ecstatic, so that was good but I don't think this is ever going to happen again.

Zeke Miller, Rebecca Berg, Chris Moody, thank you all of you.

Some other headlines now. Iran's supreme leader is vilifying U.S. police through his Twitter account using popular hash tags. The Ayatollah Khomeini compared ongoing protests against police in the West to sectarian conflicts in the Middle East. On Sunday, he sent out a tweet that read, "It's expects people who follow Jesus, follow him in his fight against arrogance and in his support for the oppressed. #blacklivesmatter."

And we are hearing new theories on last month's hack on Sony pictures. Originally, the FBI said North Korea was responsible for attacking Sony, but some hacking experts aren't convinced. The cyber security firm, Norse, did its own investigation. Norse tells CNN a former employee, not North Korea, may be a culprit.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has his doubts about North Korea, telling CNN this weekend that, if the reclusive dictatorship was involved, he can't imagine China didn't also play a role.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: You can't talk about North Korea without talking about China. We need to have a heart-to-heart with the Chinese. I can't imagine anything this massive happening in North Korea without China being involved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: That's it for me. I'll be back at 5:00 eastern on "The Situation Room".

For our viewers in North America and around the world, "Newsroom" with Ana Cabrera starts right now.