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CNN NEWSROOM

Remembering the Victims of Flight 8501; Impact of Low Oil Prices; Bad Weather Descends on Java Sea

Aired December 31, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Happening now in the NEWSROOM --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did the sonar discover the aircraft?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think so.

COSTELLO: Breaking overnight, at the bottom of the sea, believed to be what's left of AirAsia Flight 8501.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Whatever happened was fast and it was dramatic.

COSTELLO: This morning, CNN is on the ground.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How does a man cope in this situation?

COSTELLO: As investigators and families search for answers. Plus Arctic blast, 2014 ending in a deep freeze. Reports this morning that more than 100 people are trapped in their cars, stuck in the snow.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whipping winds and treacherous road conditions as rescue workers work overnight.

COSTELLO: And tonight's the night. Champagne, crowds. From Times Square to the beaches of Sydney. Old (INAUDIBLE) on this New Year's edition of "NEWSROOM."

(END VIDEO TAPE)

COSTELLO (on camera): And happy New Year's eve to you. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me this morning. We begin this hour with the search for answers in the AirAsia plane crash and the heartbreaking return of its first victims. Here's the haunting image as stark as it is telling. Simple wooden boxes bearing bleak numbers, 001 and 002. The first of 162 people that need to be recovered. But those efforts are now hindered. Just hours ago, bad weather descended on the search area in the Java Sea. Planes are grounded but progress is still being made.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TONY FERNANDES, AIRASIA CEO: The weather unfortunately is not looking good for the next two or three days and that is - that is slowing us down, but they did inform me that the ships are looking to operate 24 hours which is very encouraging and they bring all the assets to the two spot, which they think the aircraft could be -- where the aircraft could be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNN's Andrew Stevens is in Surabaya where the doomed flight began and where the victims will make their final journey home. Hi, Andrew.

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. That's right, a very somber moment here when those first two coffins arrived bearing the first two victims of flight 8501. They are believed to be a man and a woman. They have not been formally identified yet. That process continues. There are ten bodies now that have been retrieved, but really the big issue at the moment is finding the primary wreckage, the fuselage, which the authorities here do believe can still contain many if not most of the bodies, still, perhaps, buckled into their seats inside the plane. But that search, as you were saying there, as we've been pointed out, is being hampered badly by the weather here.

We're speaking to our own weather team in CNN, and they're saying expect big heavy rain, strong winds, waves up to 20 feet, swells up to 20 feet. And even though the warships in the area particularly can handle those sorts of conditions, it does hamper any sort of operation. And we don't know. There's no confirmation yet whether that sighting, sonar sounding of what the authorities think may actually be the fuselage not confirmed yet. So there's hopes in the next 24 hours at least sonar could perhaps confirm that is it, so they've got the ground zero, if you like, of the crash site getting down with that fuselage. But it's a painful process, and you can only imagine what the families are going through as they wait for their -- the remains of their loved ones to return.

COSTELLO: I know ten bodies have been recovered. Have authorities been able to identify any of them?

STEVENS: Not yet, Carol. I think they're being very, very careful about identification. The first two as we've seen, have arrived here in Surabaya, that's where the police have set up a hospital which will be responsible for I.D.ing. Now that the family members have been asked to provide photographs, to provide any sort of records which could help establish the identity. But they also, it looks like they also want to do DNA testing on all the victims, just to make doubly sure. So at this stage, no I.D., at least no confirmation of I.D. on those first two bodies. We are expecting to be told as soon as the I.D. has been made positive.

But the other bodies are expected to be coming, some more are expected to be coming in tonight, we're told. We're not quite sure when that will be, but it will be a slow process. They want to get this right, and, of course, how long this goes on for, this could be days. If the weather, which is forecast to remain bad for the next two days at least, if that really does impede the search, it's going to be two, three, four, perhaps five days before the bodies all come back here for that -- what sounds like it will be quite a long and intensive I.D. process.

COSTELLO: All right. Andrew Stevens reporting live for us this morning, thank you.

Of course the biggest priority for search crews is finding the plane's black boxes. Actually that's the second biggest priority. Those black boxes contain critical information, like altitude and air speed and radio transmissions from the cockpit, but finding them is no easy task. Rough weather, deep water, and the possibility of a large debris field could mean major challenges for search crews. CNN's Randi Kaye has more for you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is what it looks like, trying to recovery an airplane in the ocean. You're watching a U.S. Navy salvage team gather pieces of TWA flight 800, which went down off New York in 1996. Here, divers are maneuvering among pieces of the twisted wreckage.

CAPT. RAYMOND SCOTT MCCORD, FORMER SUPERVISOR OF SALVAGE, U.S. NAVY (RET.): The U.S. Navy actually has recovered an intact helicopter from about 17,000 feet, so they have the capability. They've done this before.

KAYE: Retired Navy Captain Chip McCord has been involved in at least 50 ocean salvage operations, including TWA 800 and Swiss Air flight 111, which crashed in 1998 off the coast of Nova Scotia. The underwater vehicles are equipped with lights and cameras. They are also outfitted with sonar to scout for debris. They are steered by two operators on board the ship above, who use instant feedback from the salvage vehicles' cameras to direct the robotic arms.

MCCORD: They can hover, they can move left, right, forward and aft and go to what they need, very carefully hover over a piece and pick it up if they need to.

KAYE: Remember Air France flight 447, which crashed in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009? Two years later, an unmanned underwater vehicle found the debris field for that flight 13,000 feet beneath the surface. The engines were pulled from the ocean floor.

MCCORD: If it's small like that black boxes, you can put a little basket on the ROV and the arms from the ROV can pick it up and put in the basket.

KAYE: But the remote underwater vehicles can only carry about 4,000 pounds, so anything heavier, like a large piece of the fuselage, will have to be attached to a cable and pulled to the surface by a crane on the ship.

Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: So let's talk more about the search for flight 8501 with sea operations specialist Tim Taylor, he is also the president of Tiburon Subsea Research, a company that specializes in ROVs and AUVs and underwater imagery. Welcome back, Tim. So the head of search and rescue says most of the passengers are probably still inside the plane, strapped in their seats. How difficult will it be to get to those passengers?

TIM TAYLOR, PRESIDENT, TIBURON SUBSEA RESEARCH: Divers are going to probably be the choice -- tool of choice on this one once they locate it. The robots, robotic gear can augment their work because they can stay down long times and tell them where to go to get the bodies. If that's the case--

COSTELLO: So if the fuselage is intact, will they have to cut it open?

TAYLOR: Well, there's probably entry points they can get in, and there's procedures. Usually these types of commercial divers are surface-supplied gas so they don't have any limits on gas. It's bottom time. But bringing the bodies out is really going to be the turbidity of the water, it's going to be the sea state on top, getting divers -- it's exit and entry from the boat that's hazardous for these guys if it's going up and down 20 feet at a time. And then visibility. You have rainy season. Rainy season means runoff from land, and runoff from land is usually dirty water, so the visibility drops to -- it could be nothing. So that's what's going to complicate things.

COSTELLO: How dangerous is this for the divers? There are 100 people perhaps down there.

TAYLOR: Right. There is some risk for the divers, but divers are trained to do this. There are procedures and methods for diving that -- they're not going to -- it's not that it's unsafe, they just know what they're doing and they can go in and make this happen properly. And it may take a little bit of time, but divers are well versed at these depths to do this kind of work.

COSTELLO: Such an agonizing wait for the families. Okay, so supposedly they have two spots narrowed down as to where the wreckage is. Once the weather clears and they get their sonar equipment down there, how long will it take them to get an exact location?

TAYLOR: As soon as they hit the target, it's there. The know -- everything is georeferenced on their sonar. So if they see it on their sonar image, they know exactly where it is. And they can, if they find one piece of it, if it's in several pieces, they can expand the search from that point to find the others, and immediately multiple teams can be working. As they find a section they can start putting robots down and divers, and they can continue looking for other sections. It doesn't have to be -- it's not an all or nothing.

COSTELLO: Initially we thought the water isn't so deep, maybe 150 feet, right? And the water is very clear, it's pretty warm, but now it's monsoon season and that's a complicating factor.

TAYLOR: Clear water may or may not be there, depending on how close they are to shore. If you get a little farther out into deeper water, they may have clearer water, dirty water stays on top. There are thermals, there are different things that can affect that. But you have rainy season. Rainy and mud and things come into the ocean and it really does knock it down.

COSTELLO: Not very much debris was found floating on top of the water. Should we read anything into that?

TAYLOR: It's a clue. Unless more shows up, it could be that it's more intact than it's not. I would assume with what you have right now, you have to kind of go that way until proven otherwise.

COSTELLO: Well, I'm sort of reading into what the head of the rescue team said, that most of the passengers are probably still inside the plane, which says to my untrained eye that the plane probably fell -- it didn't explode in air or did not come apart in air.

TAYLOR: Maybe attempted to land. Maybe they tried to steer it out of there, maybe they had some luck, you don't know. And frankly, if they're telling you that, they may have some indication for why they're telling you that. They may not be telling you why they're saying that, but there's something leading them to believe that on the ground that we are not privy to.

COSTELLO: So if the plane largely is intact under the water, how long will it take to bring it up? What will they have to do the bring it up? You heard Randi Kaye.

(CROSSTALK)

TAYLOR: Well, in a situation where a ship is largely intact or a plane is largely intact, it's a lot of planning and then execution. So a barge will be brought out, a giant barge, and then cranes and equipment to lift it up. Maybe even something, a submersible type platform that can go in the water, put the plane around it and bring it up. There is multiple procedures to do this. And a good example would probably be the salvaging of treasure ships and things of that nature, where they take their time. But this is intact, so bringing it up and putting it on a barge and bringing it in is quite possible. But again, good weather, good conditions, and equipment to do that, and it's planning, planning, planning, and then execution.

COSTELLO: Tim Taylor, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Bad weather is hampering search efforts off the coast of Borneo. The first bits of debris from flight 8501 were discovered just 24 hours ago. Indonesian searchers saying this morning they've recovered ten bodies so far. Here's CNN's Jake Tapper with more on those who were lost. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For the families praying and waiting for good news, each piece of debris discovered represents the destruction of their last hopes.

TONY FERNANDES, CEO, AIRASIA: The only slight benefit is that for the people in there, there is some closure. This is a scar with me for the rest of my life.

TAPPER: Now as victims' belongings are collected from the sea, the world is gaining a clearer picture of who we've lost. 162 souls, including 18 children. One of the first pilots to spot debris told the Indonesian newspaper "Compass" that he saw victims floating in the water still holding hands. It's perhaps an apocryphal tale, but it is symbolic of the tragedy. In this South Korean church, the congregation is weeping for one of their missionaries. Park Seong Beom, as well as for his wife and for their 11-month-old daughter. Gone along with them, a fiance whose chance to become a husband will never come.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They said that his plane was missing.

TAPPER: His bride-to-be explained that Alain Oktavianus Siauw perished along with his family on their last trip together.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was supposed to be their last vacation before us got married.

TAPPER: Britain's only citizen aboard, Choi Chi Man, was traveling with his two-year-old daughter Zoe when the plane went down. According to the newspaper "The Telegraph," the father boarded this flight because there were not enough seats to fly with his wife and son on another.

The wife of the pilot is mourning as well.

WIDIYA SUKATI PUTRI, WIFE OF FLIGHT'S CAPTAIN (through translator): The children still need a father. I still also needed guidance from my husband. He's a good husband in my eyes, and he's a faithful husband.

TAPPER: Captain Iriyanto was an experienced Indonesian air force veteran whose daughter posted this photo on social media pleading for his return. A return that tragically will never happen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Oil prices could be heading to their biggest drop in nearly a decade. It's crazy how low a barrel of oil is. Alison Kosik, it's crazy.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I know, I just looked before I got on the set. Oil now below $53. It really is amazing. It's fallen almost 50 percent since July. That's down from $100 a barrel. Part of the reason, the U.S. is becoming a major oil producer; economies in China and Asia are slowing down, and OPEC says you know what? We're going to sit this out, we won't cut production, see where the chips fall. And here's where the chips are falling. Who's winning, consumers. We are enjoying low gas prices, no doubt about it. Airlines are enjoying these lower fuel costs, they are getting more profit. I don't know if they're passing it along to you and me. Construction firms also enjoying it because if they transport goods back and forth, they're saving money on that gas as well. But guess who's losing? Oil companies are losing.

COSTELLO: Oh, no.

KOSIK: It's jobs, because you think about Halliburton and B.P., they're already hinting about job cuts happening.

COSTELLO: When you say losing, how much are they losing?

KOSIK: Well, not talking about money just yet, talking about jobs, and that's really what many are focusing on and where President Obama, the Obama administration, has actually stepped in to help the situation.

COSTELLO: I know he banned exports, right?

KOSIK: OK. So what's happened is, and many people didn't realize this, but many oil companies are not allowed to export, to sell to countries overseas unrefined oil, crude oil. This law went into effect in the 1970s after Arab oil countries suddenly jacked up prices and cut supply to the U.S. and other countries after the U.S. supported Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Well, after the oil Arab embargo happened, you saw the U.S. step forward and say, hmm, we are at the mercy of these oil-producing countries, let's put this law into effect, not let companies export unrefined oil, because we want to try to have domestic sources of energy. It's controversial whether or not that helped, but what's happening now is the landscape has changed. We are becoming a powerhouse of oil production, so yesterday the Obama administration said, look, we aren't going to lift the ban, we'll loosen it a little bit and let certain companies export unrefined oil, unrefined shale oil, and this could actually help save the industry.

COSTELLO: So that could save American jobs, in other words? Because the oil companies will export and their profit margins will go up again?

KOSIK: Exactly.

COSTELLO: Because they're not losing money, they're just not making as much, right?

KOSIK: Exactly. But you look at these shale producers, they really held up the jobs, especially during the recession. You saw these jobs really come to pass and hold up the economy. You really don't want to see the shale industry fall just yet.

COSTELLO: That's true. Alison Kosik, thanks so much. It's traditionally a night of champagne, fireworks and smooches, but

this year protests are also planned in several United States cities. The group "Stop Mass Incarceration" is calling for nationwide demonstrations to protest recent police killings of unarmed black men. In Boston, the mayor is delivering a strong message to another online group. He's asking activists to hold off on a planned die-in during tonight's festivities. And in New York, amid celebratory anticipation, the relationship between police and Mayor Bill de Blasio remains tense. And when I say tense, I mean tense.

"The New York Times" is reporting New York City police are carrying their solidarity tantrum to new and dangerous levels. Statistics suggest cops are walking off the job and no longer making low-level arrests. The "New York Post" reported Tuesday for the week starting December 22, days after two officers were executed, traffic citations have fallen by 94 percent over the same period last year. Parking violations went down 92 percent. And drug arrests are down 84 percent. Still, New York City police say they'll keep revelers safe in Times Square tonight, but it might not be easy. CNN's Rosa Flores is in Times Square this morning with more. Good morning.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Here is the biggest take-away for revelers. According to the NYPD, the experience here at Times Square is not going to change. Take a look around. There's people from all over the world already here, descending onto Times Square to ring in the new year. Of course a celebration that many people are looking forward to. So back to the NYPD. They tell us that nothing is expected to change for revelers, but behind the scenes, things will change. The NYPD telling CNN this morning that they're going to have more officers out on the street. They're also going to be monitoring social media heavily. Why? Well, because of the increased number of threats that have been coming into the NYPD since the killing of those two police officers. Now, they have a couple of other details to share. Here's what the NYPD had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF JAMES O'NEILL, NYPD: There will be hundreds of cameras, some of which are displayed on the screen in our (inaudible), joint operations center, and monitored live via the NYPD'S domain awareness system. This sophisticated network of closed circuit TV feeds 911 calls, suspicious package alerts, and radiation level readings. This system works in real-time to send alerts to trained police and security personnel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: And you're taking another live look here at Times Square, the NYPD also letting us know that undercover police officers will also be within the crowd. And one more thing, protests have erupted all over the city in the past. They tell us that for the past five weeks, they've had a specific detail on stand-by, Carol, just in case a protest erupts. Carol?

COSTELLO: Rosa Flores reporting live from Times Square this morning. Thanks so much. See, I'm already to tonight because it's going to be fun tonight despite all of that. I hope it's safe and there are no protests and everything goes smoothly because I want to invite you to keep it tuned in to CNN, because you can ring in 2015 with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin, that starts at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. But you don't have to wait for the fun. Head over to CNN.com/nye. The party has already started online. And as we go to break, here's what the start of 2015 looks like in Japan.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)