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Flight 8501 Likely at Bottom of Sea; Search for Flight 8501 Resumes at Daybreak; Indonesia Asks U.S. for Help with Search; Burning Ferry
Aired December 29, 2014 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Brianna Keilar in for Wolf Blitzer. It is 1:00 p.m. here in Washington 6:00 p.m. in London, 8:00 p.m. in Jerusalem and 1:00 a.m. in Jakarta. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thank you so much for joining us.
And our top story this hour, the mysterious disappearance of Air Asia Flight 8501. The search for the plane will resume at daybreak in Indonesia, roughly four and a half hours from now. And here's a look at the latest headlines. The hunt for Flight 8501 is expanding. The agency in charge of the operation plans to add four more search zones, that's in addition to seven zones that crews are already focusing on.
Also, we just learned that Indonesia has formally asked the U.S. and other countries for help with the search. One of the latest theories is that the plane might have stalled during flight. The theory is based on this. It's a screen RAB, and it's said to be leaked by an air traffic controller. This appears to show that the plane was climbing but that it was losing speed.
And police say that they are not asking family members for information to help identify the passengers, at this point. Earlier, some police officials said authorities were asking for photos, medical records, fingerprints for DNA. They are now saying that is not the case.
And Air Asia Flight 8501 is the second missing plane in Southeast Asia in less than a year. So far, searches have found no sign of the plane with 162 people on board. As we hear from Andrew Stevens, authorities are fearing the worst in this latest aviation mystery.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDREW STEVENS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Grim new details as the search for Air Asia Flight 8501 continues. Indonesian authorities leading the search and rescue think the plane is likely on the bottom of the sea based on coordinates of the plane's last transmission.
Here at Surabaya airport, it's become crisis central. The distraught relatives of the 155 passengers briefed here earlier today behind closed doors. Monday marks the first full day of searching since 8501 disappeared early Sunday morning. So far, the plane has not put out any signals that could help pinpoint its location. Instead, crews focus on this very broad search zone over the shallow waters of the Java Sea where the plane was last tracked. At 5:36 a.m., the Airbus A-320 took off from Surabaya. Roughly an hour later, Air Asia says 8501 lost contact with air traffic control, vanishing on route to Singapore. Weather reports indicate the pilots encountered severe storms that may have contributed to the fate of the passengers and crew.
UNIDENTFIED FEMALE: Usually, it's not one thing that brings down a plane and for a modern jetliner or a strong, big jetliner to be brought down by turbulence, it's rare.
STEVENS: One theory that the plane may have stalled as it climbed to a higher altitude. This screen graph reportedly leaked by an Indonesian air traffic controller and seems to support that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What it shows is this particular flight had an altitude of 36,000 feet and climbing but traveling at approximately 105 miles per hour, too slow to sustain flight.
STEVENS: CNN could not validate the authenticity of that image. But we do know that at 6:12 a.m., one of the pilots radioed for permission to avoid clouds by turning left and climbing from 32,000 feet to 38,000 feet. It would be the last known communication from the crew.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are very devastated by what's happened. It's unbelievable. But we do not know what has happened yet.
STEVENS: For these two teenage girls whose parents were aboard the flight, all they can do is wait, holding onto hope that their families will soon be found.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEILAR: CNN's Andrew Stevens with that report. And for more on the search and the missing plane and the latest theories about what may have happened, let's bring in our panel. Here with me in Washington, Peter Goelz, CNN Aviation Analyst and former NTSB managing director. And from Charleston, South Carolina, we have Mary Schiavo, CNN Aviation Analyst and former inspector general with the Department of Transportation. In New York, I'm joined by David Soucie, CNN Safety Analyst and author of "Why Planes Crash."
Peter, I'll start with you. Why do you think it took so long for authorities, Indonesian authorities, to say there's an emergency here? It took an hour and a half.
PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, it is endemic in the business that you are reluctant to call an emergency. You think maybe the pilots have inadvertently switched their radio dials, any number of problems. But people don't like to call an emergency. Particularly, you know, if in a structure that is a military form of monitoring. They just don't like to do it.
KEILAR: They want to wait and do it. Mary, you said -- we heard in Andrew's piece, you said it's generally not just one thing that causes a crash here. Let's talk about the weather, though. Obviously, this was some pretty severe weather. The pilot had asked for permission to climb to 38,000 feet because it was so bad. But what else could have contributed to this?
MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, and the weather might have been a precipitating or caused a cascading effect. And in other crashes that I've worked -- and I'm not saying it happened here. But in other crashed I've worked, here's how the sequence went. You had particularly bad weather that stressed the plane and the pilot. The pilot made decisions on how to climb or what to do with the plane and then a piece of equipment did not respond as the pilot thought it would be. And in most of those accidents that I worked, it was three things that combined. And in two of those cases, the plane fell from 35,000 feet.
KEILAR: OK. So, you're looking at this -- David, you hear what that screen grab says. We haven't confirmed it. We should stress that. But Climbing at 36,000 feet, that's why experts are thinking that the plane was climbing because it was at 32,000 when the pilot made the request to go to 38,000. 105 miles per hour, it's not very fast. Not fast enough to sustain flight. How does a pilot make a mistake like that?
DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, the optimum climb attitude, at that point, or speed, at that point, for this aircraft is about 270 knots. So, it's -- that's where it should have been to get through the climb as quickly as possible with the power settings it had. So, obviously something had gone wrong there. There was something that the pilots did not anticipate or they had -- didn't have the information that they needed to make the proper decision which was the case of Air France 447 when the pitot tubes had been blocked off and they didn't have air speed indications. So, one of those two scenarios is what I would think is most likely, at this point.
KEILAR: Let's say they didn't have air speed indication. What is the safest thing for a pilot to do at that point? To descend?
SOUCIE: Well, not necessarily because the -- in these aircraft, there's a shaker. And what that does is it gives you the same indication if you're under an under-speed situation or an over-speed situation. If you're in an over-speed situation, you would pull back on the aircraft and try to make a climb to slow yourself down and, of course, reduce power.
Now, if you're in an under-speed situation, you would then try -- excuse me, over-speed situation, you would go down -- you would go up and in an over -- under-speed situation, you would go down to increase the air flow over the wings to prevent the stall. So, without that information, you're relying on the ability to simply look out at the horizon and see if you're climbing or not. Air France 447 did not have that option because it was dark outside. But in this case --
KEILAR: Yes.
SOUCIE: -- there would have been horizon that they could have seen and been able to be more aware of their angle of attack.
KEILAR: Well, you certainly -- it does make you wonder if, perhaps, these things came together, Peter. Because you have the pilot requesting --
GOELZ: Right.
KEILAR: -- to ascend and air traffic control saying, no, denying that request. And yet, we believe, based on this screen grab, that the pilot went ahead and went for the assent. How unusual is that? Under which circumstances would a pilot disregard air traffic control?
GOELZ: Well, a pilot's fundamental responsibility is a safe flight for himself and his passengers. I mean, he has to look after the plane. And if, in his judgment, climbing is the most immediate and safest thing to do and he's in open air space, he's able to see what's around him, he needs to do it. And that's his judgment. So, he -- it meant he was under some degree of stress to make that decision, though. Something was going on.
KEILAR: That's your impression, Mary?
SCHIAVO: Yes. I mean, I'm -- that's the piece -- one of the pieces of information that doesn't make a lot of sense because you really don't. If the air traffic control says you can't climb, you've got traffic, you're risk a midair collision. And, you know, if that had occurred, obviously, the planes have midair collision avoidance and the planes themselves would've taken evasive action. The plane would've overridden the pilot and there you go. But that didn't make a lot of sense to me because if air traffic control said no, it's very odd that you would do it. And so, I was wondering, if at that point, they were experiencing some weather that gave them unbelievable up or down drafts and they literally had to fight for their lives against some pretty rough weather.
KEILAR: Yes. They were maybe being forced in a certain direction. Mary, Peter, David, stick around. We'll be talking more with you this hour.
Still to come, we have a closer look at this storm we were just talking about, the pilot appears to have been trying to avoid.
Plus, Airbus, the maker of the missing plane, is jumping in to help find this flight. And new numbers of those rescued and those killed after a fire tore through a ship stranded on frozen waters.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEILAR: Let's get more now on our major developing story today. A second day of searching for the missing Air Asia jetliner has turned up nothing. And as we've heard, the head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency says speculation is that the jet is, quote, "at the bottom of the sea."
Indonesia has also officially asked the U.S. to help in the search. With me now to talk about this, we have CNN Aviation Correspondent Rene Marsh. We have Tom Foreman. He's also following this story for us. And you have this speculation, Tom, that weather could have played a role in this. You have the pilot asking air traffic control while at 32,000 feet to go up to 38,000 feet. Request denied. But what kind of weather was the pilot dealing with here?
TOM FOREMAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It was not unusual weather for that part of the world at this time of year, but it was still extreme weather. And that's the kind of weather the pilots always have to worry about because weather is always an issue out there.
Let's take a look at, basically, the weather map here. And the area that we're talking about where the plane went down is right in here. And at times, you can see in the cycle of the weather around the time, it fills in almost entirely with those red areas that show very dramatic winds, very dramatic lightning and the potential for dramatic pressure changes. And those pressure changes, I'll tell you this, Brianna, can make a huge, huge difference. Because if you think about a plane in flight, when it gets up into the air there and it's trying to go through the air, if it hits very low pressure or very high pressure, it has the risk of getting, in a sense, mechanically confused. In the sense that it's flying through very, very strong forces that are making it push hard forward. The next moment, very low pressure where it's shooting forward. All of which can lead to some of that mechanical confusion of the plane where, in effect, what you can have is a -- is a separation of the air flow over the wing.
The only way to describe this best is, at the right speed, the reason the plane is flying is because the way the air is moving over the wing and under the wing create lift. If you get your speed completely wrong and the attitude of the plane wrong, these can separate from the plane. And if they, effectively, separate from the plane, Brianna, this is the same as if you were driving on the road and you lose traction with the road. Once that happens, everything that you use to control the car is no longer there.
So, that's why weather really matters. Not so much because lightning would hit the plane because lightning would not likely bring it down, not because the weather would tear the plane apart because that's also very unlikely. But because weather conditions can make the performance of the plane get changed in just the right ways. And if you lose that control, suddenly, you have to have a very experienced pilot who does everything right to get back under control while falling maybe 1,000 feet per second through the sky.
KEILAR: Yes, and that's assuming all of the instruments are working correctly, too, which is a -
FOREMAN: And if you're reading it right, correct.
KEILAR: Which is another concern, I think, of some experts.
So, Rene, right now there is a search area that has been going on for a full day, recontinuing now. That's being expanded. And then you also have AirBus, AirBus-320 is what this plane was, a French company, that is getting involved now.
RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Right. So 30 ships, 15 airplanes involved in the search today. Of course, the aerial search called off until daylight tomorrow. At this stage, AirBus tells me that they've sent two experts from France. They are there in Indonesia as we speak. Their role will simply be to essentially help identify pieces of the plane if and when they find it. Also help investigators if they don't understand how certain systems on the AirBus works, they'll be there to fill in those blanks.
Also, we know that the French equivalent of NTSB, they've sent two of their investigators there as well to help move this forward. Obviously key is finding the wreckage. They're kind of at a standstill until they actually have physical pieces of the plane. And we also just learned that Indonesia has officially asked the United States for help as far as the search efforts go. So that might mean equipment to help to find this plane.
KEILAR: Like sonar equipment for an underwater search?
MARSH: Absolutely.
KEILAR: OK.
MARSH: Because, you know, we heard officials say that they believe the plane is at the bottom of the ocean. You have the aerial search going on with the naked eye. But if it is indeed the bottom of the ocean, you need that sonar equipment.
KEILAR: And, Tom, there are some comparisons I think some experts are drawing between this particular flight, perhaps whatever happened, and with an Air France crash that went down a few years ago, going, I believe, between Rio and Paris. That plane stalled as it was climbing and we were just talking about the instruments being an issue.
FOREMAN: Right.
KEILAR: Is there -- is that an accurate comparison, do you think?
FOREMAN: Well, we don't know until we know what happened with this plane, but it's a scenario that would make sense here. In the Air France crash, what happened is the plane -- if we use this as our example right now -- was dramatically losing air speed. It was slowing down but, in particular, they had a problem with these things down here. You see this little tiny device on an airplane. You may have seen it if you've flown on one. That's called a pito (ph) tube. The pito tube is the thing that is telling you how fast that plane is moving through the air. In the Air France crash, there had been previous problems of ice crystals forming, giving false readings of speed.
So if we go back to that other image that we were talking about there for a moment or two, if you look at the idea of a plane flying here, if that happens and you don't know how fast you're going, which they did not know in the Air France crash, the pilot, who is chiefly in charge up here, he kept trying to pull the nose of the plane up saying, well, I've got to get back in the air, I'm losing ground here. I've got to raise this plane up. And only when they were way too close to the water did the other pilot say, no, no, no, you need to point that nose down to get control of the plane again. And by then it was too late. That is a mistake that can be made if they don't know how fast they're going and they're essentially falling through the sky when they think they're moving forward.
KEILAR: Yes, if you think you're going fast and you're going down, then the instinct is to climb. But if there's some sort of instrumental problem telling you you're going fast and you're actually going slow, it can be a disaster.
Tom Foreman, Rene Marsh, thank you so much to both of you.
And still to come, the weather conditions in the area of the missing plane, they were less than accommodating. We've been talking about that. We'll be hearing from one man who has actually flown this exact flight path before.
And disaster strikes on cold, rough seas. Hundreds of people stranded on a boat engulfed in flames.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEILAR: An amazing rescue effort has saved the lives of hundreds of people trapped aboard a burning ferry. Helicopters working through the night to pluck these passengers off one by one. In all, 427 passengers managed to escape the burning ship, eight people did die. The ferry was going from Greece to Italy when this fire started. And joining me now to talk about this on the phone, CNN's Nima Elbagir, who is in Brindisi (ph), Italy.
Nima, are there still people aboard this ship at all?
NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, our understanding is that there are crew members that are still being ferried off. But the main ship, the Sanjojo, the rescue ship, that still hasn't stopped and that gives you a sense really of the weather conditions here. They haven't, as yet, been able to decide which port, whether it's Brindeci, where we are, or Bari (ph), close the north up the coast, which of these ports would be the easiest accessible for tis recue ship which is carrying 100 or so of the remaining passengers and some of the - some of the crew members on board. And given that the death toll has inched up through the day, that's causing, as you can appreciate, a lot of anxiety for those survivors that we've been speaking to who have been separated from their family members. I think, for many of them, until they see their loved ones face to face, they're not going to believe that this is actually finally over, Brianna.
KEILAR: The fire, Nima, is tremendous. Do we have any idea what caused it?
ELBAGIR: Well, that is the question, really, that everybody is attempting to drill down on. But when you speak to these survivors, one woman I spoke to said that what woke her was these two explosions, that clearly something ignited. And she said that when she first boarded this ferry, immediately she felt this sense of unease because she saw it loading up with tankers carrying fuel and she said it was quite an old ferry. So already she wasn't 100 percent comfortable. But then seeing all of that inflammable gasoline coming on board this ship, she said immediately it became a source of concern for her. And throughout this ordeal, coming up through the soles of her feet she said were these continuous explosions, as more and more of this flammable liquid came a light.
The Italian authorities are beginning their investigation right now as we speak, Brianna. They're trying to find out how this could have been allowed to happen. And we understand from the prosecutor's office in neighboring Bari that they're trying to request to the ship support here so they can start looking over it forensically.
Brianna.
KEILAR: All right, Nima, we'll be looking for answers along with you. Nima Elbagir from Italy for us.
And still to come, monsoon rains and a massive thunderstorm. Hear from one man who has flown the exact flight path of missing Flight 8501.
And we want to hear from you. Send your questions about this flight to #8501qs. We will ask your Twitter questions to our team of experts.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEILAR: Welcome back for our viewers in the United States and around the world, I'm Brianna Keilar, sitting in for Wolf Blitzer today.
Let's get back now to our major developing story. A second day of searching for the missing AirAsia jetliner has turned up nothing. The official search has been called off because of darkness. It is right now about 1:30 a.m. in the area off the coast of Indonesia. Now, when the search does resume, that's expected to take place in a few hours at daybreak. China has said it will join in and will cover an area about 30 percent larger than today's search.
And now Indonesia has formally asked the U.S. for its help in locating the plane. Joining me is Les Abend (ph). He's a contributing editor to "Flying Magazine," and he's in New York for us. And on the phone from Sussex, England, is Alistair Rosenschein. He's an aviation analyst. He's also a former pilot.
And, Alastair, you've actually flown this very route traveled by Flight 8501. Talk to us about some of the weather issues, especially this time of year, and how much of a role this could have played.
ALISTAIR ROSENSCHEIN, AVIATION ANALYST (via telephone): Well, we're talking about the Intertropical Convergence Zone here, which is an area of unstable air which circles the globe and lies the tropical (INAUDIBLE). So with the warm water in that area, and we're talking about the Java Sea here, that can - that provides the fuel for the source of weather buildup. And we're talking here about vertical winds, highly unstable air, which causes formation of thunderstorms, and -- which we call cumulonimbus and these can be very large with very, very strong vertical winds that are over 100 miles an hour going up in the warmer part of (INAUDIBLE) and vertically down in the colder part, that can (INAUDIBLE) rain and hail.
It is primarily the thunderstorm - sorry, it's primarily the turbulence and icing which are the two main problems for aircraft flying there. Lightning is less of a problem. It makes one jump if one's struck by lightning but it is not a danger to the aircraft itself.
