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New Information Arises Regarding Pilot Who Allegedly Crashed Germanwings Plane; Senator Harry Reid Announces He Will Not Seek Reelection to Senate; Interview Former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Stephen Seche. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired March 27, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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


CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news in the flight 9525 investigation. German prosecutors say they found documentation in Andreas Lubitz home documenting a medical problem. Notably what they found were ripped up notes, multiple ones, granting him days off because of his condition from a doctor, including the day of the crash.

[08:00:20] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Now investigators say they have found no claim of responsibility, no suicide note, but they did find evidence that the pilot had been under medical treatment. Whatever the issue was, it was not new. A medical condition had also been noted in his pilot's certification. We're bringing you these breaking developments the way only CNN can, beginning with CNN's senior international correspondent Fredrik Pleitgen live in Cologne, Germany. Fred?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, all of this comes from the public prosecutor's office in Dusseldorf, which is the German authority that's heading the investigation here in this country. And they are working very closely with their counterparts in France that are, of course, also part of it because that's where the crash took place.

You're absolutely right. They came out with a statement I would say about 20 minutes ago, a written statement where they said that evidence from his apartment in Dusseldorf seems to suggest that he had an ongoing medical condition. Now, they said that they found documentation inside that apartment that showed that he had this ongoing illness and that he was also receiving ongoing medical attention from doctors for it.

Now the key thing in all of this, and you guys alluded to this a little bit already, is the fact that they said that they found multiple ripped out sick notes that he had received from the doctor that deemed him unfit to go to work, including one from the day that the flight took place.

And it's interesting, if you read the note in German, it clearly is one that right now is looking at this as a criminal case because they do say it was the -- on the day that the crime was committed. There's a lot of language in there that says that they are looking at this in a way that this was -- that this is now a criminal case. And also absolutely true, they are also saying that they did not find

any sort of goodbye note. They don't think there's any sort of or there's nothing to suggest there's any sort of political motivation behind all of this, any sort of religious motivation. They believe that this has a lot to do with the fact that there was this illness. They did not say whether this was a mental condition or whether this was some sort of physical illness. Chris?

CUOMO: Fred, the big indication right now is that whatever it was having an impact on him that drove him to become a mass murder. So one of the groups of people who are going to be pivotal to investigators but may want to discuss this the least in some ways will be the family. They will be questioned for clues into what Lubitz was dealing with in his body and his mind. And the German town where his family lives, the entire town is in shock over the news that he sabotaged flight 9525.

We have someone there. CNN's Rosie Tomkins outside that family home. Rosie, what's the reaction?

ROSIE TOMKINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chris, of course the town in absolute shock at this news, disbelief that somebody could have come from here and done such a thing. I'm standing in front of the family home. You can see the world's media has descended upon what was previously just a normal family home in this normal town in Germany, now the focus of global, global scrutiny looking for these clues, and as we've been hearing, these revelations of these medical notes that there was an existing condition coming from the police searches at this home here in his hometown and in Dusseldorf.

And of course now the focus shifts to the family and anyone who knew him who could corroborate this, who has any information into his existing state. His parents, who we believe traveled to France with other families of victims to grieve for their son, will now be getting these incredibly shocking revelations themselves, not only that he deliberately plunged this plane into the mountain and killed these people, but now these revelations of his medical condition, which of course we do not know yet whether or not they had information about which everybody will be fervently seeking information about, Chris.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: I'll take it here. A double dose of grief for that family of the co-pilot, my goodness. Meanwhile crews face worsening weather as they rush to complete the daunting task of recovering remains and debris. Meanwhile the victim's families are attending a memorial service held near the site. CNN's Nic Robertson is live in France with more for us. Nic?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. It is getting windy here. It's been windy all morning. The helicopters have still been flying, and we are learning through the police spokesman here of progress that is being made in the recovery effort. We are told that some of the victims have -- whose bodies or parts of their bodies have been recovered so far are now in the temporary lab set up here in the mountains and they're beginning to do testing. DNA testing is what the prosecutor said would have to be -- would have to be done. It may take several weeks before any of these -- any of the victims can be repatriated with their families. The families more families expected here today. Yesterday more than 100 family members came to a memorial service that was held in a field that French authorities said was the closest they could get the families to the crash site.

[08:05:07] There was a memorial plaque that had the names of everyone aboard the aircraft. People were able to go forward, read the lists -- read the names of their loved ones who were lost in that crash. Still a lot of questions. The French authorities here really determined to give the families who still want to come here, there will be more coming today, to give them the opportunity to learn as much as they can here, to see what the French authorities are doing. And they're also providing people to give them emotional support and counseling if they need it while they're here. Back to you.

CAMEROTA: OK, Nic. There are so many new developments just in the past hour for us to talk about. So let's turn to Peter Goelz. He's our CNN aviation analyst and former NTSB managing director. David Soucie is our CNN safety analyst and former FAA safety investigator. And Michael Welner, our leading forensic psychologist. Gentlemen, great to have you with us to help us understand the developments that just came out.

The German prosecutor has just announced some of the findings of going to this co-pilot's home. They found evidence, David, let me start with you, to show evidence that he did have some sort of medical condition, though they are vague on what it is. They also found, chillingly, a torn up note, a doctor's note that would have given him permission to take a couple of days off including the day of the plane crash. What are your thoughts?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, we have to be careful of tying this to some kind of psychological treatment because we don't know that. In fact, this medical examiner who is looking at the pilots, he's not really the psychologist or the psychiatrist that would be treating this. So we have to be cautious about that. The other thing is the fact that his certificate is noted. If you have eyeglasses, that's a medical condition that's being treated. So as that's being treated, that has to be documented, and that would be --

CAMEROTA: So it could be something as benign as being nearsighted?

SOUCIE: Absolutely, except now we have to look at the doctor's note in a separate way. That doctor's note says that there's a treated condition that will affect his ability to fly because he could have gotten a day off with it. So that's where it's really concerning.

CAMEROTA: Michael?

MICHAEL WELNER, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: I'm just reluctant to get overly fixated on a medical note. I think at least from a forensic psychiatric perspective, the prudent approach is a psychological autopsy. And what that does is that deconstructs a person's movements and actions and choices and the points leading up to the catastrophe.

I think that we need to recognize his remains as a black box. What is in him toxicologically, what is in him pharmacologically? This is a rare, near unprecedented condition. Whatever medical condition he has, whatever psychological condition he has, there's no way it's as rare as the decision to commit murder-suicide, and that's often, often when it happens, an impulsive decision that may have been driven by what was in him or what's in his personal black box, his smartphone, his second life, the communications that are not immediately available to investigators that are not in paper form but are in digital form, and it can reconstruct his movements and his decisions in the next 48 to 72 to 96 hours.

CAMEROTA: Fascinating. Peter, I want to bring you in because you were at the NTSB and you investigated another bizarre case of a murder-suicide, and that was Egypt air. And I recall it took a long time. There were at first some indications that the pilot might have done something so sinister, but it took a long time to determine what the pilot's mindset was and that it was in fact a murder-suicide. What were the challenges?

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: The challenges weren't so much whether we knew what had motivated him. We had a very clear picture what had happened to him in the preceding 72 hours in that he had gotten into trouble in New York City on a legal matter. His chief pilot had told him he was done when he got back to Egypt. He had been not the most successful pilot. He was 59-years-old and still had never been -- had been passed over for full pilot promotion. So there was a lot there. The reason it took some time for that to be revealed is that this was a very touchy diplomatic issue with the government of Egypt. They've never accepted the fact -- the conclusion that the NTSB drew.

CAMEROTA: Right.

GOELZ: But we had a clear picture of what were the motivating factors behind this guy's behavior within a few weeks after the accident.

CAMEROTA: That's interesting, Peter. So when you hear these things that have come to light in just the past hour about a medical note having been ripped up, in other words, he appears to have been, according to the prosecutor, keeping some details of his medical condition from his employer. So what conclusions do you draw about this case?

[08:10:03] GOELZ: Well, I think it -- and I'd look to David to talk about this a little more, too. I think it highlights a very vexing problem in the aviation community, in the pilot community. We ask pilots to voluntarily take themselves off the line when they're fatigued, when they don't feel fit for duty, and we promise them, or management promises them that that's not going to be held against them.

Well, if you talk to the pilots unions they say that's not true. If you take yourself off the line for fatigue or for psychological reasons, you get marked. Your career is in jeopardy. And I don't know how we get around that. This is a very challenging issue in which you want people to look into themselves and say, am I fit to fly? You want their colleagues to say, hey, this guy's got an issue. But when you do that, you may be scrapping a career. And, David, I mean, do you disagree with that?

SOUCIE: I fully agree with that. In fact, what I think was the most successful in this was the alcoholic program that they have that the FAA initiated. And what that does is it allows you as a pilot to say I have a problem. And they admit that. They have a way to go to that. Then they are guaranteed treatment. They're guaranteed how to take care of this and how to move forward in the career.

CAMEROTA: Is there a disincentive that there is a stigma after that?

SOUCIE: There is a stigma. But what it doesn't do is become a permanent part of their record.

Now with these other things, I know a pilot who's in trouble right now because he made a very simple mistake in a checklist. But that follows him because now he said, I self -- he self-disclosed that. Then he said, look, I made a mistake. No one else would have known. But he landed on the other end. He said, I skipped this part of the checklist. I screwed up, bad me. Well, now he's unemployed. He is unemployed and may never fly again.

CAMEROTA: That's telling.

SOUCIE: Because he had to be recertified to fly that aircraft. So this is a big problem for the FAA.

CAMEROTA: Ten seconds, Michael.

WELNER: This is a murder-suicide. There are analogies to law enforcement, to military who also don't reveal because they'll ruin career. I think what the media can do now is a murder-suicide on such a large focus -- scale, focus on the families and the losses so pilots who are truly at risk step outside themselves before such a fatal decision and recognize that there are people who have never done anything to them who don't deserve to have their lives extinguished.

CAMEROTA: That sounds like the answer. Michael, David, Peter, thanks so much. Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: Strong advice from the doctor as well, Alisyn.

We do have more breaking news for you on another front. Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid will not seek another term, meaning he will relinquish his seat in the upcoming 2016 Nevada race. CNN's Sunlen Serfaty joins us from Washington with more. What's going on with this?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, this is big news on Capitol Hill really representing the first big change in Congressional leadership in a long time. Reid has served in Congress for over 30 years and he has been at the helm of the Democrats, in the lead of the Democrats since 2005.

Now he posted on Twitter this morning that he has made the decision not to run. He was up for reelection in Nevada in 2016, and that he will retire. Now this is a Twitter video that he posted, over three minutes long. It was very emotional, I should say. There were images of him over the course of his career. His wife spoke during the video. And he is recovering from a rough year already. In January he had an accident with a piece of exercise equipment which caused bruises to his face. And I want to play you a little bit of this video right now in how he came to this decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRY REID, (D-NV) SENATE MINORITY LEADER: But this accident has caused us for the first time to have a little down time. I have had time to ponder and to think. We've got to be more concerned about the country, the Senate, the state of Nevada, than us. And as a result of that, I'm not going to run for reelection. My friend, Senator McConnell, don't be too elated. I'm going to be here for 22 months, and you know what I'm going to be doing, the same thing --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: And in the video he later goes on to say that he didn't make this decision based on his injury. He also notes that he didn't make the decision based on the fact that in November in the 2014 midterm elections that the Republicans took control of the Senate. Now, I have to say the big question on Capitol Hill is who will take over for Reid. This is going to be a big absence on Capitol Hill. Two names that come to mind are of course Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. Michaela?

PEREIRA: Very interesting development. But as you said, he has 22 months still left to go. All right, Sunlen, thank you.

Other news now, the U.S. led coalition in Tikrit continuing to hammer ISIS with airstrikes. But now Iran-backed Shiite fighters on the ground on boycotting the fight, saying they don't want help from the U.S. That could amount to as much as 10,000 anti-ISIS fighters now on the sidelines.

[08:15:05] CAMEROTA: The Republican-led U.S. Senate passing a budget that would cut spending, they say, by $5.1 trillion over the next ten years. It would raise military funding and attempt to repeal Obamacare. This passed after a marathon 15-hour debate session before recessing for the Easter holiday. The House passed a similar spending plan Wednesday. Those bills will have to be reconciled before any budget can be sent to the White House.

CUOMO: More proof on how great a man legendary basketball coach Dean Smith was. Coach Smith made the North Carolina Tar Heels one of the best teams in the country for decades. But he was lauded as much for his caring as for his coaching. That never stopped, apparently not even after his death in February. In his will, coach gave $200 to each of 180 of his former varsity lettermen, each player receiving the check and from the estate a letter urging them to enjoy a dinner out complements of their former coach. One of smith's former players said his wife was so touched by the gesture she's still in tears.

PEREIRA: I think this speaks to what a legendary man this figure was. That is the coolest thing I've ever heard. CAMEROTA: It's so great. Posthumously to be giving people gifts.

What a surprise.

PEREIRA: Sit and enjoy a steak dinner with some of their teammates, talk about him, his greatness and time together.

CUOMO: He would often tell people, it's not about what kind of player you make the young man, it's about what kind of young man you make the young man.

CAMEROTA: That's great. What a great message.

PEREIRA: Very good.

CAMEROTA: All right. We have been asking you what you want to know about the mysterious crash of Flight 9525. So, we will pose your question to our CNN experts.

CUOMO: And another major story this morning is Yemen. It is up for grabs. Saudi Arabia and Iran are working against each other there. America, stuck in the middle. We have this complex geopolitical ramification for the U.S.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:20:24] CUOMO: There's been a second night of Saudi airstrikes endorsed by the U.S. on Iran by Houthi rebels in Yemen. That makes Yemen even more chaotic, if you think about it, and certainly, it makes Iran furious.

So, why is the White House standing by its strategy in the face of all of this turmoil when it's trying to cut a deal with Iran?

Let's turn to former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, Stephen Seche.

I guess we have to look at this a lot of ways, because complex situations, the goal is to make them simple. When you look at this, is there any simple benefit that you see to the U.S. strategy here?

STEPHEN SECHE, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO YEMEN: I think the benefit to the U.S. strategy has to be seen in the overall context, and to suggest that there is success because we managed to keep an al Qaeda franchise at bay for several months, absent political success, absent economic success, is not exactly a way to define it. I think that the failure to see the totality of how our policy has to be successful is an impediment to our ability to understand more fully what we need to do in that country.

And, in fact, the absence of political success is why al Qaeda has managed to claim a safe haven in Yemen. It's also what breathes life into the Houthi movement as they articulated a national frustration across sectarian lines to the failure of the political parties and the government in Yemen to act on political reform, to eliminate corruption, and to really move on a political transition successfully.

CUOMO: One step to the side there. You're making the counter argument to what we've heard out of the administration about Yemen being a success.

Let's play Josh Earnest and what he said about Yemen, not the ABC reporter question and answer. I'll talk to you about that. Play Josh Earnest so we hear what they said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Yemen is a place where the United States over time did build up a strong working relationship with the central government and that strategy did effectively mitigate though not eliminate the threat that is posed by AQAP.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: We had another version of that, that arrived to the same conclusion, but it was being pushed by Jon Karl over at ABC News, saying, do you still see this as a success, with this Hadi government that you installed that was funded by the Saudis and that has now been pushed out, and the people are upset and it's a devil's playground for terrorists? He said, yes, we still it as a marginal success not a complete success. You disagree, why?

SECHE: Well, they're trying to define success again in a very narrow bandwidth, and I think he's probably along those very narrow terms in terms of the counterterrorism success over the last several months. That totally ignores the abject failure of the political process, of an ability to stand up a central authority, in the absence of that central authority is the fundamental failure of our foreign policy and that of the Gulf neighbors who have resorted to violent airstrikes in order to try to re-establish some kind of control in Yemen, having let it slip out of our hands while being watched hopelessly by and let this political process unravel.

CUOMO: All right. So, Ambassador, this is going to be counter intuitive for you. You are in the business of bridging situations for the U.S. and outside entities.

But let me give you what's going on outside as people are watching this in the country. They're saying this is one more reason why we should just stay out of here as the United States. Let them figure it out. Let the Arabs figure it out. Let them figure it out in their region. Every time we get involved, everyone ends up hating us.

What's the counter-argument?

SECHE: Well, I think what we're seeing now is very much that school of thought. We're letting the Arabs try to work this out. What they're doing is coming up with a military coalition that they claim will protect and preserve and reconstitute the Hadi government.

I'm not sure you can do that at the end of a gun. And I'm not sure that there is a military solution to what's happening in Yemen. We'll see in the coming days if they can pound the Houthis into submission. I suspect it's going to be difficult than that.

CUOMO: Whatever it is, it is. Whatever happens in Iraq with ISIS will help, will help, the way we are. We're the biggest military machine in the world. We'll give you our intelligence, but you guys figure it out. Wherever the dust settles, that's the new world and we'll start moving from there.

Why isn't that good enough?

SECHE: We have interests of our own. We need to be on the ground. We need to be present in the discussions and deliberations with both the authorities in these countries and their neighbors and make sure our interests are also accurately represented and presented so their policies reflect our interests. And many of them are common interests with these countries themselves.

So, nothing is done in a vk umass. All of our interests overlap and we need to be there to make sure that's understood by all the parties to the conflict.

CUOMO: So, last question, how do you understand the current status. So, we're trying to do what you say with Iran with nukes and everybody is mad at us about it. Israel, Saudi Arabia, they're all mad.

[08:25:01] We're trying to help put in a stable government in Yemen and you have Iran and I know you have the Houthi rebels and the pictures of all of these citizens holding up weapons and they're blaming us for it. You have what's going on with ISIS and we're trying to help which is what the fight for Islam is and regional territory and now you have ISIS telling everyone to target us.

Where is the upside?

SECHE: Well, we're uniquely positioned to come to terms with others around the world. No one else can do what we can do. But it also gives us enormous exposure to criticism and to bring negative opinion about what we do around the world.

The upside for us, of course, is that we can, perhaps, shape the outcomes in these countries if we work hard and diligently and our people really do that around the world. But it's not an easy slog. There's a lot of opposition, there's a lot of violence. There's a lot of chaos in the world.

The policies don't always look pretty and well packaged. They sometimes get messy and it's very difficult to see them working well until a time comes when they go on the ground and you put them into play having thought through the entire process and where it might take us. We need to do that now.

CUOMO: Well, we'll take you at your word because you were ambassador to Yemen and you know what the place needs.

Thank you for the perspective, Ambassador Seche. Thank you, sir.

Alisyn?

SECHE: My pleasure, Chris. CAMEROTA: OK. We've had a lot of breaking news this morning. We have more right now. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid will not seek re-election. The impact of this, what will it be on the 2016 elections, and the Senate moving forward?

PEREIRA: And we put you to work. We asked you for your questions on Flight 9525. Now, we're going to get you some answers from our experts, just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)