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Identifying Victims of AirAsia Flight 8501; AirAsia Search Continues; Reports On How Plane Crash May Have Occurred; Pilot's Family Speaks; Monsoon Season Hampers Search; Wreckage Holds Story; Lessons Learned From Air France crash

Aired January 1, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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


BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you and happy New Year to both of you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Happy New Year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You, too.

KEILAR: And that's it for me. Happy New Year to all of you out there. I'm going to be back tomorrow you'll see me and for our international viewers "Defining Moments 2014" is next. For our viewers in North America, "Newsroom" with Ana Cabrera starts right now.

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Ana Cabrera. Thank you for being here. This is CNN's special live coverage of the search for AirAsia Flight 8501.

Twenty-five days, that is how much battery life is left in those black boxes, critical to unveiling the mystery of what happened aboard that plane. Now, today, sources tells Reuters that the plane made a, quote, "unbelievably steep climb" before it crashed, possibly pushing it beyond the plane's limits.

But New Year's Day was a frustrated one for search crews in the Java Sea. You wouldn't know it from scenes like these, but the weather over the search zone was once again terrible, grounding planes, sending helicopters home and keeping divers on board their ships. But another body was pulled from the ocean, bringing the total to nine, and that is out of 162 passengers and crew.

The other eight victims recovered are now on shore and we can now confirm the identity of one of them, Hayati Lutfiah Hamid. Now, local media says she's a teacher. Her I.D. still attached to her body, along with an initialed necklace. Andrew Stevens is at the new crisis center set up for family members at Surabaya, Indonesia.

Andrew, what do we know now about the identification process for these other victims?

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN INTERNATIONAL: Well, they're going to follow a very similar process to Hayati, I.D.ing Hayati, which is going to be a very, very painstaking and thorough process, Ana. As you say, there are now eight bodies here at the police (ph) hospital, which are currently undergoing identification, although it is 2:00 in the morning and they're not working at the moment.

But they start, obviously, with photos, which have been supplied by the families. The families supply any information about unusual marks on bodies or any usual features on the bodies. They're also looking for anything -- certificates or whatever which could tie them to something which may be in a wallet or a purse and also material, genetic material as well, which could be used in the DNA testing. So all these steps are available.

And even with Hayati, we understand that DNA sampling was used in that, even though her name was - her I.D. was still attached to her on the body when she was pulled from the water. So they are being that painstaking.

Of course, they have to be. You can't have a mix-up like that. But it all adds to the time the relatives have to wait to get the remains of their loved ones.

CABRERA: It's amazing that she still had her I.D. on her person. Thanks for that update.

I know that the search is about to resume again in just a few hours. We got word that some debris had been pulled from the plane. A couple of purse, a gray suitcase all recovered back on Thursday.

Andrew, I want to come back to you if you're still with me. What do we know about the plan for the search attack today?

STEVENS: Well, it really all depends on the weather, and the weather forecast at least not looking good. If you look at what happened today out there, the weather was sweeping through in bands. So there was intense rain, there were high winds and there were high seas and there were clearer patches in between that during which the rescue crews or the search crews could actually get out and do their job. But that, obviously, very frustrated by it, the amount of work they could do, not much at all.

There are 90 vessels, 90 surface vessels in the search site. The key to this, of course, Ana, is finding the main fuselage, which they do think there is a large section of the fuselage which does contain a large number of bodies as well, at least that's the working assumption here. It will also likely contain the black boxes, which are at the tail of a plane, maybe the cockpit voice recorders as well. That is what they're looking for.

They saw a shadow a few days ago now, but they haven't been able to send divers down. They haven't got any pinging from any of the black boxes or locator devices. So there's that frustration as well. The sea conditions make it very difficult for people to get down and get eyes on that.

And, interestingly, just reading reports in local papers here, Ana, the fishermen on the island of Borneo and Borneo is the closest landfall to where the search field is and where the debris has been found, officials there now asking local fishermen to look in these remote coastal areas where they usually go fishing to look out - to be on the lookout for bodies, basically, because they think that bodies may have floated on shore by now or if they were going to they would have by now.

CABRERA: All right, Andrew Stevens, thanks for the update.

Now, before it fell 30,000 some fleet, Flight 8501 was apparently climbing. That's what a source tells Reuters, saying specifically the jet made a, quote, "unbelievably steep climb." Now, the source came to this conclusion after seeing radar data from the plane.

Here's more of what the source told Reuters. Quote, "so far, the number taken by the radar are unbelievably high. This rate of climb is very high. Too high. It appears to be beyond the performance envelope of the aircraft."

CNN has not been able to independently verify this report, but let's discuss this with our experts. With me now is the author of this book, "Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind and Danger," CNN aviation analyst Jeff Wise. Also with me, CNN aviation analyst Les Abend, who is also a contributor for "Flying" magazine.

Gentlemen, thanks so much.

So stressing, again, that this is somewhat speculation, we don't know that this report is true, but what do you make, Les, of this idea of a steep climb pushing the plane beyond its envelope?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Once again, if this is verifiable and credible information, it would indicate to me not the performance of the airplane, but a thunderstorm with a serious updraft. Six thousand, 9,000 feet was the number I heard mention. That still seems pretty incredible, even for a very strong thunderstorm. Now, there's downdrafts in it also.

What I think we were discussing on the break was that if a pilot experienced this type of a situation, his immediate instinctive reaction would be to disconnect that auto pilot. And it's a switch you click on the control stick in this particular A-320, in this airplane, and he would try to attempt to control his airplane. If he couldn't do it in a severe turbulence type situation, he would just -- wouldn't worry about altitude, he'd worry about attitude. In other words, what is - what's the state, how stable is his airplane relative to the horizon, and his horizon would simply be his instrument panel.

CABRERA: What do you make, Jeff?

JEFF WISE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, Airbuses are built with something called envelope protection. So when you're flying them around normally, the plane will not let you put it into a situation beyond its flight envelope, or to stall, for instance. And you can get into a situation -- this happened with Air France 447, where if the sensors get clogged, for instance, and the computer isn't able to make sense of what it's doing, then it will turn itself off and hand itself over to the pilot. But in a normal situation, the flight computer will not let you do something that's outside the envelope. Bear in mind, however, first of all, I don't know if this is true,

that it would - that this maneuver would put you beyond the envelope. We don't know if the source of the data is reliable. And I'm reminded of MH-370. Very early on, you might recall, we had these reports that the plane ascended steeply to an altitude beyond its envelope as well.

ABEND: It's service (INAUDIBLE).

WISE: Its service ceiling.

ABEND: Yes.

WISE: And that it later dove at a rate that was apparently physically impossible. And so, again, I mean I've said this a whole bunch of times today, but this is early. We're getting reports that may not be reliable.

ABEND: Right.

CABRERA: You don't want to speculate too far ahead.

WISE: Exactly. You don't want to make too many extrapolations.

ABEND: And, remember, this protection that you're talking about was primarily designed to protect the airplane or the whole flight from a landing or a takeoff situation if it's a stall, you know, with flaps out and so on.

CABRERA: Right.

ABEND: That's primarily the thinking behind the engineers on that as opposed to cruise (ph).

CABRERA: When you talk about, you know, specific technology and these planes, you know, taking it out of auto pilot, if a sensor's, you know, going off. But what if those sensors are wrong, such as the Air France 447 flight, and so the plane's sending the wrong information out. I mean can this data, if this radar data is true, could that be inaccurate?

ABEND: Absolutely. I mean the pitot tubes that we're referring to that send air speed information to the air data computers and thus send to the instrument panel, if you have erroneous information, you're going to get erroneous warnings. You're going to get things that won't make a lot of sense. And that's why that Air France 447 was such an interesting accident in that regard is that they were getting such conflicting information and the computers were too.

WISE: So the plane has multiple sensor, multiple pitot tubes, et cetera. And so what happens is, this pitot tube says this, this pitot tube says something else, the computer says I don't know who to believe, I'm going to take myself off, throw it over to the human being. Hopefully he can figure it out. In that particular case, the human being wasn't.

ABEND: And I think they were both blocked, if my understanding is correct.

WISE: Yes, but only temporarily, interesting. But, anyway, that's beside the point.

CABRERA: So all that being said, in this particular case, again we don't really know what happened, but would a pilot be able to get out of a situation in which, like you said, maybe it is climbing steeply because of weather pushing it up?

ABEND: In that particular circumstance, the best way would be to turn away from this, as long as you recognize the situation that you're in. Most likely, you know, there would be an attempt - I mean my reaction would be, let's get the airplane back to the altitude that we were assigned. Once you realize that's not going to happen right away, make sure the airplane's stable, everybody's OK. And I would probably turn away from that storm and I would have already been looking at it on the airborne weather radar.

CABRERA: I see you shaking your head. You agree?

WISE: Absolutely. And I've been - I was talking with Les earlier about - I was - I've been collecting information on similar incidents that have happened historically in the last 20 years and there have been a number of cases in which, for various reasons, airplanes find themselves in unusual latitudes (ph), upside down for instance or steeply descending, and most of these cases pilots are able to recover. The most dangerous situation seems to be one in which the pilot becomes confused, disoriented. Maybe he's paying too much attention, trying to troubleshoot an issue and, you know --

ABEND: Or it's close to the ground, there's not time to recover.

WISE: Well -

ABEND: We had some upset incidents back in the early '90s that began a training process - a new training process just to reacquaint ourselves with unusual latitude (ph). Something we got in primary flight training.

CABRERA: And I want to just get one last question in here about some of the new information given that they've I.D.'d a woman who had had I.D. still on her body, also was wearing jewelry. Does that give us any more clues about what happened in this crash, Jeff?

WISE: I think it's hard to really draw too many conclusions. I think different parts of the airplane could experience different conditions in terms of break up, how catastrophic it might be experienced. If you're right where the hull ruptures, for instance, and you get sucked out, you're going to experience something very different from if you were in the tail and you're - it's still in one piece.

ABEND: I would like to know where that passenger was seated.

WISE: Right.

ABEND: And I bet you right now that investigation process and the folks involved with that are looking into that at this moment.

CABRERA: Absolutely. Les Abend and Jeff Wise, thanks to both of you.

Just ahead, we will take you inside a crash lab where we see pieces of wreckage that can tell investigators what happened in a plane's final moments.

Up next, CNN is going to speak with the family of the pilot. His daughter, his wife, his son and his parents, they talk about his relationship with his co-pilots and why they're glued to their TV in these agonizing days. This is CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: While investigators zero in on what may have caused the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501, we are learning more about some of the 162 people on board. One of them, the captain, a former fighter jet pilot who recently celebrated his 53rd birthday. And this was the second recent tragedy for the family. The pilot's younger brother, he died just days ago from diabetes. Now family and friends shared their thoughts and their grief with CNN's Gary Tuckman, who is there in Indonesia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is what it looks like today in the home of the captain of AirAsia Flight 8501. This is Captain Iriyanto's 24-year-old daughter Angela and wife Widiya, his seven-year-old son, Arja (ph). This is his father. This, his mother. And a house full of family and friends. A house so full that more people are outside in front of the home, as well as out in the street. This is a liat (ph), the Indonesian name for the traditional visit made when there is a death in the family. But Angela still talks in the present tense about a father she adores.

ANGELA ANGEL PRASETYANI, DAUGHTER OF AIRASIA PILOT (through translator): He is kind, wise, and humorous. He's easygoing. He's intelligent. He never raises his voice. He's never angry. I'm very proud of him.

TUCHMAN: Family and friends occasionally glance at the TV that stays on with nonstop coverage of the AirAsia crash. Pictures of Iriyanto are all over the home, a wedding photo, a picture when he was an air force pilot. He went from the air force to one of Indonesia's airlines for 13 years and then moved on to AirAsia six years ago. One of Iriyanto's friends paying his respects. He's a pilot for another airline.

TUCHMAN (on camera): What kind of pilot was your friend?

PLATER DAORIWOE (ph), FRIEND OF AIRASIA PILOT (through translator): He is a very responsible pilot. We used to be in the air force together. He's very loyal. He's very kind. In his work environment, he's very kind to his co-pilot, his cabin crew, his ground crew and all the people who fly with him. TUCHMAN (voice-over): Model planes of jets Iriyanto flew are part of

the decoration of the house. His wife says the outpouring of support at their home is invaluable right now.

WIDIYA SUKATI PUTRI, WIFE OF AIRASIA PILOT (through translator): I'm happy so many people are here. It gives support to me and my family.

TUCHMAN: Like so many families of AirAsia victims, there was significant hope of survival among members of this family, when the wreckage was still missing, but Iriyanto's daughter doesn't want to abandon all hope, at least until her father's body is found.

ANGELA: Of course I still expect that he's alive, but at the same time I have to accept the reality.

TUCHMAN: And that's why many of these same family and friends will be back here tomorrow and for days after, offering their support and their love.

Gary Tuchman, CNN, Sedarjo (ph), Indonesia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Our thanks to Gary Tuchman. What strength that family is exhibiting.

In just a few hours, the sun will rise over the crash site, but more turbulent weather is coming. Are crews losing valuable time? Up next, we'll show you what's heading that way.

Plus, a storm in this some convergence zone also impacting the Air France flight that crashed at sea, which we mentioned earlier. One expert says these instances are very similar. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: When we talk about the bad weather hampering the search for AirAsia Flight 8501, important to note that it is monsoon season in the Java Sea. Gale force winds making it nearly impossible for those search helicopters to fly. There's driving rain that cuts visibility and then the high waves in the Java Sea are making it difficult for ships. Joining me now, CNN meteorologist Tom Sater.

And, Tom, today's search, we know, which has already come and gone, had to be called off because of the weather. Is there any reprieve in sight?

TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, there's so many elements to this tropical climate here, Ana. I mean you've got low visibility too. Even if it's not raining, after a heavy rainfall, there's a sea fog. Probably worse for the vessels that are on the surface of the Java Sea. But we had nine aircraft yesterday, four helicopter, five fixed wing, they're able to get some work done, but, again, a second day in a row where they had to cut it short.

Let me give you a little climatology of Indonesia. And there is a big difference between southern sections, where we have Surabaya, and up to the north in Borneo. The equator is pretty much right over as you see Pencalanboon (ph) here. So, again, that's pretty close to where the - we believe the crash occurred and where our search area is.

This is to the south. This is Surabaya. Overall, across Indonesia, December is the worst. But let's break it down. You can see how bad it is. But look at January, February and March. We've got three more months. The worst rainfall for Surabaya and the dry season doesn't begin until July.

Now we go the north a little bit. Let's get closer to the equator. Pontianic (ph). Now, this is an area where they're going to have a little bit more rain, almost every month. So when you split the difference, it doesn't look good for the search and rescue teams for the next couple of months. Most of their work is going to have to be done at night and that's when the seas are calm, so they can kind of pull along the pinger locators and the sonars.

If you were going to go back and look since the day we lost contact and rate the weather from one to 10, 10 being the best, the day we lost this aircraft was at one. It was the worst. Two days ago it was a two. Yesterday, about a four and they still had some cancellations and suspension of activity.

This is what it's like now. It's like 2:20 in the morning and things are look good. But look just to the south, more thunderstorms, blinding rainfall that wants to lift from the south this time of the morning, moving in toward our search area. But it's been erratic lately. Some have been moving up from the south. Some have been moving in from the west. So, again, I think we're going to find another day for the next couple of days where the weather's not going to be good, Ana. We're looking at nine to 12-foot seas for the next 48 hours.

CABRERA: Not good to hear. Tom Sater, thank you.

Up next, as crews find debris and wreckage, we'll show you how investigators study each piece inside a crash lab.

Plus, there are a number of similarities between this crash and that Air France disaster, but there is a big difference that could make it easier in this case to find the black boxes. Details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: A gray suitcase, scraps of metal and two black bags, just some of the latest items recovered from AirAsia Flight 8501. This debris, along with another body, it is still on a ship now being brought in for identification. A process that begun with the positive identification of a woman, a teacher, according to local media. Now searchers have recovered nine bodies total, but rough seas and waves has high as 10 to 13 feet are once again hampering the effort to recover more victims and those all-important black boxes. Now when searchers finally do find and recover AirAsia Flight 8501, what clues will the wreckage hold? CNN's Casey Wian visited a lab at the University of Southern California to see how accident investigators lean to study the twisted wreckage of planes. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THOMAS ANTHONY, USC AVIATION SAFETY AND SECURITY PROGRAM: What you see around here is a safety system that has failed.

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Instructors took me through part of the training.

ANTHONY: What strikes you with this debris?

WIAN (on camera): Well, what strikes me is that there was a big fire here and it doesn't look like anyone could have survived this.

ANTHONY: And then you look over there. What do you see on that left wing?

WIAN: Well, I see twisted metal. It looks like some sort of significant trauma happened to that wing, crashed into something, hit something. I don't know, a pole.

ANTHONY: We teach the discipline of accident investigation. Namely, to observe the fact, to document the fact and then let the facts take you by the hand and lead you to the next fact, and the discipline not to conclude, not to summarize, and not to think too far ahead, but to stick with the facts.

WIAN: And so how wrong am I?

ANTHONY: You're right.

WIAN (voice-over): But minutes later, I jump to a faulty conclusion looking at different wreckage.

ANTHONY: It almost looks like a crumpled beer can. And what we see here is the power of a thunderstorm.

If we can teach one thing, it is never one thing. It's always a chain of interrelated causes. The reason it's safe is this, is that the lessons that we have learned through accident investigation and through investigating the procedures, they're the ones that have changed this and made it such a safe form of transportation.

WIAN: Casey Wian, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Clues to what cause AirAsia Flight 8501 to go down in the Java Sea may be found in a previous air disaster. The crash of Air France Flight 447. Now, the Air France Airbus A-330 went down in the Atlantic Ocean in 2009 during a flight to Paris from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Two hundred and twenty-eight people were on board. All of them perished.

Like the AirAsia flight, the first debris and the bodies were recovered within just days of the crash, but it was almost two years before the bulk of the Air France wreckage and the plane's black boxes were found on the ocean floor.

Clive Irving has written about the Air France disaster for "The Daily Beast." He is also the author of "Jumbo: The Making of the Boeing 747."

Clive, thanks for being here. When you analyze these two different tragedies, what do you see as the most important similarities?

CLIVE IRVING, AUTHOR, "JUMBO: THE MAKING OF THE BOEING 747": Well, I think the first thing is how quickly these things can happen, because it's apparent in this case, we must be very careful not to make too much of the very fragmented information we have at the moment. But there are certain similarities. This thing happened very quickly. We know because of the gap - short gap between when the crew asked for permission to climb and when the