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Shooting at NSA Headquarters; Two Men Dressed as Women; One Killed at Incident; Other from Incident in Hospital; Andreas Lubitz Was Suicidal Several Years Ago; Prosecutor States Co-Pilot Declared Unfit to Work; Iran Deal. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired March 30, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there, I'm Brianna Keilar in for Wolf Blitzer. It is 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 7:00 p.m. in Cologne, Germany, 8:00 p.m. in Sanaa, Yemen, and 9:30 p.m. in Tehran. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks so much for joining us.

And we start this hour with a shooting incident at the National Security Agency headquarters in Maryland. This happened in Fort Meade where the NSA has its main offices after two people crashed through an outer gate, and they moved closer to an inner gate that's guarded by NSA police.

Joining me now is CNN Justice Reporter Evan Perez. And we also have Tom Fuentes, Law Enforcement Analyst and former FBI assistant director. So, what really is the latest here, Evan?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Brianna, it's still a very strange case. We have two men, both wearing wigs, apparently, in this vehicle that tried to breach --

KEILAR: Wigs meaning dressed --

PEREZ: As in drags, yes.

KEILAR: -- as women?

PEREZ: Yes, dressed as women.

KEILAR: OK, got it.

PEREZ: Women, correct. Women's wigs.

KEILAR: OK.

PEREZ: And they tried to crash through one of the outer perimeter gates to the complex that houses the NSA headquarters at Fort Meade. It's not clear exactly what their intention was. No motivation is known. The FBI right now says that they have no indications that this is terrorism related. We have pictures of one of the wigs down there found at the scene. One of the men was shot dead by an NSA police officer who responded to the incident. The second has been taken to the hospital and is being treated. Now, when they were able to try to interview this person, they tried

to -- they tried to figure out what exactly was happening, they found drugs inside the car. And so, that was -- that was what we see right there at the scene as well. It's, again, not clear whether this was something that was mistaken, that they accidentally tried to get into the complex and perhaps when they were confronted, this led to some very bad mistakes, additional mistakes being made. But we do know that the FBI doesn't think it's a terrorism incident and they just think it's a head-scratching one right now.

KEILAR: A head -- they don't even know. It's very confusing, Tom. But when you have something like this happen and we can't quite make heads or tails of what it is, at this point, what's the training level for those guards who are at this inner gate?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, they're not at the inner gate yet, Brianna. They're at the outer gate. But, regardless, any of the gates, if you're trying to take a vehicle through the barricade at the gate and it's not authorized, you will be shot dead. Very simple training.

KEILAR: That's it.

FUENTES: That's it.

KEILAR: And so, where do they go from here, in terms of the investigation?

PEREZ: Well, the -- at this time, Brianna, the FBI says that they're, again, going to try to see whether or not there's any charges to be brought against the remaining individual if he is able to recover. Again, this is something that was, you know, just so strange. The facts are just so strange.

KEILAR: So odd.

PEREZ: So odd. You know, they react very strongly, obviously, because you can't have any kind of security incident. This is one of the best-guarded federal facilities in this region.

KEILAR: Is this just a --

FUENTES: We had a simple -- we had a similar incident about 10 or 15 years ago at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland where somebody tried to drive through the barricades, crashed their way through and was shot dead. Turns out to be a teenager that had some kind of mental problem. But it doesn't matter. They're not -- they're not in a position to let somebody get through to a secure area that's that well protected.

KEILAR: And that does make sense. Tom Fuentes, thank you. Evan Perez, thanks to you as well.

Let's turn now to today's other big story. We are learning new details about the mental state of the co-pilot in the Germanwings plane crash. He showed no signs of suicidal tendencies before he crashed the plane into the French Alps. But he was suicidal several years ago before he became a pilot. And that's what a spokesman for the German prosecutor told reporters this morning.

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CHRISTOPH KUMPA, PROSECUTOR SPOKESMAN, DUSSALDORF: Yet he had at that time been in treatment of a psychotherapist because of what is documented as being suicidal at that time.

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KEILAR: At that time. Prosecutors also say they found no signs that Andreas Lubitz suffered from a physical medical illness. Reports say that he was having problems with his eyesight but a government official familiar with the investigation says that an eye doctor told Lubitz the problem was actually psychosomatic, that it wasn't physical. This video here obtained by CNN, it shows Lubitz flying a glider near his family home. He's joking with his instructor. This was shot about a decade ago.

[13:05:00] And the German newspaper, "Bild," has published chilling details of Flight 9525's final moments. The pilot trying desperately to get back into the cockpit, alarms warning the plane to pull up as it descended into the mountains. The paper says that its report is based on audio from the cockpit voice recorder.

Prosecutors say that nothing they found so far in the crash investigation answers this lingering question of why. What was the motive of Lubitz's?

Senior International Correspondent Fred Pleitgen joining us now from Cologne, Germany. And, Fred, the German prosecutor's office has confirmed that doctors had declared Andreas Lubitz unfit to work or to fly. What more have we learned from the investigation into his physical and his mental state?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's really interesting, isn't it? And one of the big questions is that why they declared him unfit to fly. What exactly the reason was. And it seems as though we can shed a little bit of light on that. Our own Pam Brown has also found out from an official that's very close to the investigation that, apparently, at least one of the reasons why he was declared unfit to fly, at least part of the reason, was the fact that his eye problems were psychosomatic.

Now, that, of course, is something that is very significant because as we've been noting, there's been a lot of speculation here in Germany about whether or not he might have had some sort of physical condition. Again, the prosecutors came out earlier today and said that he did not have any sort of physical condition.

The other very interesting part about this as well is that he also went to the university clinic in Dusseldorf to get checked up as well. And that, apparently, was for some sort of physical ailment. But now, we do know that he was unfit to fly, that he did hide that from his employer. This is something that Germanwings told us. And they also said that he had actually passed the physical. He passed the medical examination in the summer of 2014. And they said, listen. If there would have been something wrong with his eyes, something physical wrong with his eyes, our doctors would have found out. So, very significant finding that our Pam Brown made there. That at least part of the reason why he was declared unfit to fly was the fact that his eye condition appeared to be something that was psychosomatic -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, was he hallucinating? That may be one of the questions. You have this newspaper "Bild" that is publishing --

PLEITGEN: Yes.

KEILAR: -- what's really pretty horrifying details from the plane's final moments. It certainly reveals a lot, though. Walk us through this time line.

PLEITGEN: It certainly does. And, you know, one of the things that it seems to reveal is that this flight seemed to start off pretty normal except for the fact that it was about 20 minutes late. But it also reveals that, apparently, possibly, Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot, from the very beginning, tried to do everything he could to get his captain out of the cockpit.

The captain said that because of the delay, he hadn't managed to go to the bathroom before taking off in Barcelona. Lubitz says, don't worry, you can go at any time. Now, that happens at around 38,000 feet when the plane reaches cruising altitude. At that point, again, Lubitz tells the captain, you can go now. And the captain, at that point, does exit the cockpit.

Now, shortly after that, the plane starts descending. This is something that's picked up by air traffic radar. And shortly after that at around 10:32 local time, air traffic control tries to get in touch with the plane but receives no answer. Again, a couple of minutes later, the pilot, the captain, can be heard banging on the outside of the door saying, for god's sake, open the door.

However, of course, Andreas Lubitz does not do that. Then at around 5,000 meters in altitude, a warning goes off in the cockpit saying, pull up terrain, that, of course, because the plane is descending towards the mountains that are pretty high and realizes that it's not in a landing configuration so not ready to land at all. Shortly after that, again, a metallic banging sound is heard on the door as though possibly the captain is trying to knock the door down. At that point, he says, open the goddamn door.

Then, at 10:40 local time, what happens is the investigators say they believe they hear the sound of most probably the right wing scraping over a mountaintop, shortly after that the passengers in the cabin can be heard screaming, and that is when this recording ends. It's very chilling details. Of course, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of what we see there -- or hear there. The French investigators that are in charge of all this, the BAE, says it's dismayed that anything like this could be leaked -- Brianna. KEILAR: Oh, certainly very unusual. All right, Fred Pleitgen, thank you so much.

Coming up, a lot of clues there, right? What do they tell us about the co-pilot? No doubt that he was troubled but how debilitating was his mental illness? We'll be discussing that.

And then later, another stumbling block in the Iran nuclear talks. Is it enough to sink any deal? That's ahead.

[13:10:00]

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KEILAR: Let's dig deeper now on the latest developments on the crash in the Alps. German prosecutors say that Andreas Lubitz was suicidal several years ago before he became a pilot but he hadn't been since then. And a French newspaper has detailed issues with mental health over the last few years. This includes an incident in 2010 when he was given an injection of an antipsychotic drug. Here with me now in Washington to talk about this, we have clinical psychologist Ruth Wittersgreen who has also served in the U.S. Air Force. And we have CNN Law Enforcement Analyst, and former FBI assistant director, Tom Fuentes. In New York, Les Abend, CNN Aviation Analyst, and Contributing Editor to "Flying" magazine, joining me.

So, I want to talk now about some of what we've learned about Lubitz's mental health past. Some of this we're getting from reports, some is from prosecutors. But it's clear that he had these mental health issues, some of them potentially very significant. And that's really the question I think.

First to you, Les. How was Lubitz allowed to fly this plane if he had once been deemed suicidal?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: It's a great question. And first, let me go on record, Brianna, with reference to the cockpit voice recorder transcripts. Never should have been released.

KEILAR: Yes.

ABEND: This is sacrosanct. This is something that the families didn't need to hear about any of the details. But to answer your question, yes, that really would have sent up a red flag. This man did different than we do in the United States. We gain our experience elsewhere. He was funneled through a program that required a pretty rigorous screening process, from what I could tell. And during this rigorous screening process, it sounds like he was excused. That's a big red flag. If I was the airline, I'd want to know a lot more details on why this man wasn't able to handle the stress of training? If indeed that was, the details are sketchy, of course.

KEILAR: OK. So, your point there is that they should've known there was something because he was actually going through the program at the time when he was excused. And so, they had -- It would have been harder for him to hide, you think, right? [13:15:14] ABEND: Absolutely.

KEILAR: OK.

ABEND: And I - you know, this is part of the initial process with, it sounds to me, with Lufthansa.

KEILAR: Yes. So, Ruth, if there maybe is some kind of tipoff here, are you surprised that with these myriad issues, some of which the airline or the program could have been aware of, that he was allowed to be flying, or would you also say, you know what, someone like that might actually be a safe pilot?

RUTH WITTERSGREEN, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: I don't think with what's coming out that he was a safe pilot.

KEILAR: Yes.

WITTERSGREEN: And that if - if an appropriate assessment had been done -

KEILAR: Even before - yes, with what - the information that you knew.

WITTERSGREEN: That he would have - with the information we know now, I - if I were, say, employed by an airline to do evaluations, I would not see being able to indicate that he was -- however, someone who is possibly antisocial, kind of psychopath, can hide from sometimes even the very best.

KEILAR: Sure.

WITTERSGREEN: But there are procedures, and I would recommend a procedure called a SWAP, Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure, which has been employed by the military recently.

KEILAR: And what is that?

WITTERSGREEN: It's developed by my colleague, Jonathan Shedler and his - I'm forgetting (INAUDIBLE).

KEILAR: That's OK. But so what does it do, basically?

WITTERSGREEN: It's a psychologist's-administered interview versus what is used a lot are these standardized tests. And this is - has to be administered by highly trained psychologists.

KEILAR: OK. And then, which makes sense. Speak to the other issue here of these psychosomatic symptoms of the eyesight issue that he was having.

WITTERSGREEN: Absolutely. Right, psychosomatic issues have been a specialty of mine since my early training, and it can mean a lot of different things. So I would rather get more specific to what it means for this individual. And for Lubitz, it appears that I would say most likely he had psychosis, which means his brain got scrambled in a way that his thoughts were scrambled. He couldn't think through things. KEILAR: He's not in touch with reality.

WITTERSGREEN: Out of touch with reality, absolutely. Thank you.

KEILAR: Yes.

WITTERSGREEN: And he - this is an exceedingly rare type of event.

KEILAR: Yes.

WITTERSGREEN: For someone to be this psychotic and for it to not be, you know, managed and treated well.

KEILAR: Yes.

WITTERSGREEN: So that I want to reassure, you know, the public.

KEILAR: It's a very - it's a very rare thing.

WITTERSGREEN: It's so rare. It shouldn't be associated with mental illness as the standard. You know, it's on a continuum.

KEILAR: Yes.

WITTERSGREEN: And most people who have some kind of mental health issue are so far from this.

KEILAR: This is so extreme on there.

WITTERSGREEN: Right.

KEILAR: OK, so one of the issues here - and I wonder, Tom, some of it - we knew a lot of things, or officials knew a lot of the prior issues, whether or not they knew about the psychosomatic eye issues that he was being checked out for, but they knew perhaps that there were these red flags. And some they knew, some they didn't. How much medical privacy - this is my point that I'm trying to get at - how much medical privacy do you think that these pilots should have? Should the law change?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Right now, Brianna, we don't know what the laws are. We haven't heard specifics on German law. So the first question is, what did the doctors know, and when did they know it? And under German law, if they see someone's unfit to fly an airplane, are they under an obligation to report that? In the U.S., if we have a doctor examine somebody and determine that they're a threat to themselves or to other people, they're supposed to report that either to the police or the employers or both. So the question is that in Europe, their privacy laws are much more stringent than the U.S. Were the doctor following strict German law or not? We don't know.

KEILAR: Les, that's what surprises me that if you find out that Andreas Lubitz was deemed unfit to work or fly, that knowing what his profession was, that the - maybe the doctor didn't - but the doctor perhaps, shouldn't they be required to report that? ABEND: Well, you know, I can only speak for the U.S., Brianna. In the

U.S., we go every six months to an aviation medical examiner. And those medical examiners - primarily it's a physical exam. We do have to disclose various things like medical treatments that we received over the last past six months. We have to disclose things like if we attempted suicide. All this, once again, is self-disclosure.

KEILAR: Yes.

ABEND: And the doctor's supposed to observe us in kind of a cursory manner. But, you know, these folks are not necessarily trained like the doctor you have on as a guest. It involves just observing that particular individual. My particular AME is an E.R. doc. And there are other doctors that are dentists or dermatologists. So how do you go about training these folks to observe this type of psychosis?

[13:20:03] KEILAR: Yes, dentists. I don't know about that.

All right, Les Abend, thank you so much. Appreciate you being with us. Ruth, thank you. Tom, thanks as well.

And we have much more on the Germanwings tragedy ahead.

First, though, time really running out for a deal on Iran's nuclear program. Negotiators are staring each other down. They're seeing who will blink first on the latest sticking point. We'll talk about it ahead.

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KEILAR: We'll get back to coverage of the plane crash in the alps in a few moments. But right now, let's talk about the looming deadline in the Iranian nuclear talks. Major sticking points revolving around the lifting of sanctions, when, how many, can they be resumed? But that's not all that is holding up the deal. Our global affairs correspondent Elise Labott is in Switzerland where the talks are going on.

Tell us where we stand right now, Elise.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, all the ministers met with the Iranian foreign minister today. Unclear whether a deal is at hand. Clearly they're in the end game and they're racing towards that finish line.

But there are still some very key sticking points. Senior diplomats here at the top telling me that, first of all, Iran wants to be able to continue to have advanced nuclear research and technology in the end years of this deal and continue to enrich uranium. We're told that the international community wants to keep those restrictions on throughout this what we're talking about as a 15-year deal.

They're also talking about the pace of lifting U.N. Security Council sanctions, another key sticking point. Iran wants those sanctions lifted on day one. International community is afraid that Iran will use those lifted sanctions to buy spare parts for nuclear technology. And so they want to phase those sanctions out as Iran shows its compliance with the deal.

[13:25:15] Now, negotiators say it's yes or no time for Iran. British foreign minister arriving last night said if Iran wants this deal, it needs to take a deep breath and make some tough decisions, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, very tough decisions. And you can see that they're really far apart on some of these key issues. You have the deadline tomorrow coming up, the self-imposed deadline for what's the framework of the deal. So a lot to get past by that time with the final details due by the end of June. Are any other issues coming up in these negotiations? Are we hearing about Iraq or Yemen and Iranian involvement there?

LABOTT: These negotiators have been really trying very hard to keep those issues separately. You know, also, Yemen has not come out in these talks, although Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Zarif spoke about it kind of briefly before one of their meetings. But if you look at what's going on in the region right now, the civil war in Syria, what's going on in Iraq, I mean these negotiations have been going on for about two years. All throughout this, these negotiators really trying not to link that because they're afraid that if they do, then Iran will try to drive an even harder bargain because they have so much influence in the region. And these Iranian negotiators, Brianna, are very tough negotiators. So the world powers here are trying to make sure that they don't have any more leverage than they already do, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, that certainly makes sense as you explained it. Elise Labott for us in Switzerland, thanks so much.

Still ahead, we are going to talk more about the Iran deal. We'll talk about the wider effect of it on the Middle East.

But next, it's a grim task for investigators in the alps, combing the slopes, looking for victims' remains, while families mourn their lost loved ones.

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