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THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER

Interview with Australian Ambassador to United States Kim Beazley; Search for Missing Airliner; Los Angeles Manhunt

Aired December 29, 2014 - 16:00   ET

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


JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: A disastrous year for Malaysian aviation coming to an end with the families of 162 additional travelers praying, holding out hope.

I'm Jake Tapper. This is THE LEAD.

The world lead, another passenger jet vanishes over stormy waters in Southeast Asia and it may be at the bottom of the sea, though we do not know. Even though it's being called a search-and-rescue mission, hope is fading quickly.

And instead of the search area shrinking, it's now getting bigger, with more nations, including the United States, joining the effort. Will the families get any answers this time or is this going to be another inexplicable mystery?

The national lead. Cops worry that it's open season on them. A week after two officers are shot and killed in New York, a new police ambush prompted an all-out manhunt in Los Angeles.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

We are going to begin today with the world lead. It disappeared from the sky. Only the people aboard AirAsia Flight 8501 know what happened. And now it's feared all of them perished. That's according to a senior Indonesian aviation official who told reporters the Airbus carrying 162 souls, 18 of them children, is probably at the bottom of the ocean floor.

Searchers are racing to find traces of wreckage or oil slicks or anything that might lead them to the plane's final resting place. The Indonesian government has now formally asked the United States government to join the hunt.

A senior U.S. official confirmed the request came earlier today. But it's still being worked out how involved the U.S. will get. When the sun rises over the Java Sea in just a couple of hours and day three of the search begins, it's still very much unclear just what happened to this plane or even where it ended up. In fact, there are many questions about the flight's final minutes. Here is what we do know. According to Indonesian investigators, the

flight was navigating its way from Indonesia to Singapore when its pilot requested a change in altitude to avoid bad weather. That request was denied. Later, as threatening clouds and scattered thunderstorms lit up that area of the world, the plane lost all contact with air traffic control, no emergency beacons, no distress signals, no indication of anything gone wrong.

That chasm between what we know and the unknown, that leaves the families and friends of the people aboard this plane in what can only be described as an agonizing limbo.

Let's go to CNN's David Molko. He is live in Indonesia.

David, you're just about an hour from daybreak there. What's day three of the search going to look like?

DAVID MOLKO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jake. Good morning. It's 4:00 in the morning here Tuesday in Surabaya. I'm just outside the international airport here where that flight, that AirAsia flight took off about two days ago, lost on radar some 46 hours ago now.

Definitely getting the sense now that momentum is building toward an all-out search. This would be the second full day of searching. Day two, Monday, we saw about 15 ships and 30 aircraft searching areas of the Java Sea. That's according to the Indonesian vice president. That is -- the area is increasing now. They're moving from seven sections to about 11.

It's done on a grid system where they can search and check things off. We're hearing local reports that they may actually include parts of land, some of the islands, a portion of Borneo, the major island shared by Indonesia and Malaysia as well, just some local reports there.

You mentioned the United States being asked for help, China's getting involved, Malaysia and Singapore involved and, of course, Indonesia being the site of this disappearance and also the aircraft being of Indonesian origin also playing a big role in this search and leading it.

You get the sense 48 hours in that this is the moment for the search- and-rescue operation, the vice president again telling my colleague Andrew Stevens earlier that once you pass that 40-, 48-hour mark, the hope of survivors or finding survivors becomes much more difficult.

I think what we're going to see in the hours ahead is an all-out search to try to find something, some sign of that missing aircraft.

TAPPER: And, David, what is the airline telling these families right now?

MOLKO: Jake, the families are actually here in Surabaya. About 70, 75 of them are actually from this city. Others have flown in from around Indonesia. Some are staying at home, some at a hotel. Behind me, the crisis center here at the airport, we have seen the families come in twice on Monday for briefings with airline officials.

They have been closed-door briefings, so other than catching a glimpse as family members come in and out or through the windows, we haven't gotten a good sense of exactly what information we are -- giving them.

We imagine from what the CEO of AirAsia, Tony Fernandes, has said, as well as the Indonesian vice president, that they're keeping them up to date on the search, that they're doing everything they can and kind of working them through the timeline.

But at this point, what we're hearing from officials is they don't want to speculate on the cause. Their number one priority is to find that missing aircraft. Number two, equally important priority is to take care of the next of kin of the 162 passengers and crew members on board at this point, so holding out hope. We will see what the hours of the third day of the search will show in the hours ahead -- Jake.

TAPPER: David Molko in Surabaya, Indonesia, thank you so much.

With so few details about what may have happened to this plane, investigators and experts really can only speculate. Did wind shred the plane in midair, could lightning have brought it down, did it go into a fatal stall, these are all the questions that investigators are exploring.

And here now to tell us more about what we do know, CNN aviation correspondent Rene Marsh.

Rene, what are we learning about the final moments for this plane?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know that just 36 minutes after takeoff, the pilot was concerned and we know that he asked to climb in altitude. That's when the problems began.

But why the plane never arrived at its destination remains a mystery tonight. French crash investigators have been dispatched and experts from Airbus are there to I.D. pieces of the plane if and when it's found.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH (voice-over): Another mysterious disappearance of a plane in Southeast Asia, the whereabouts of AirAsia Flight 8501 and the 162 people on board unknown.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We realize the worst thing maybe happened.

MARSH: On the first full day of the operation, 15 planes and 30 ships scanned these two areas in the Java Sea for wreckage. Still no sign of the jetliner. The search expands Tuesday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have a very good idea where it was. It's in a confined area and also in an area where the water is relatively shallow, say, 150 feet vs. 10,000 or 20,000 feet. So all of those factors, to me, make it likely the airplane will be found. MARSH: Sunday morning, 5:36 local time, the Airbus A-320 takes off

from the Indonesian city of Surabaya, bound for Singapore, about a two-hour flight. Thirty-six minutes later, trying to avoid a violent thunderstorm, the pilot asks air traffic control permission to turn and climb to a higher altitude, the request denied.

JOHN GOGLIA, FORMER MEMBER, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: This airplane was not allowed to climb to 38,000 feet initially after the request was because there were so many other airplanes in the area. So other airplanes are flying through it. What made this airplane crash? Was the weather so bad at that spot?

MARSH: Or was it how the pilot reacted or something else? Those questions remain.

About 42 minutes into the flight, AirAsia 8501 vanishes from radar, all contact lost without even a mayday call. An hour-and-a-half after contact is lost, the plane is declared missing.

GOGLIA: I think the timeline in this case, A, is much better than it was for Malaysia 370, and I think it's most likely reasonable. By the time you get people notified, a whole host of people notified that you have communications issues with an airplane, and it dropped off radar, I think that that timeline is probably fair.

MARSH: The focus also on the man flying. The captain had more than 20,000 hours of experience. A social media post thought to be by the captain's daughter reads in part: "Dad, please come home. I still need you."

The captain's father told the BBC he last saw him at a recent funeral of another son.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH: Based on the flight path and the last known coordinates, search teams believe the flight, 8501, was, or is, I should say, in the bottom of the ocean.

For that reason, Indonesia has asked the United States, France and the U.K. for sonar equipment which, of course, would be used in an underwater search. But when we talk about underwater searches, it's very complicated. But here we are moving into day three and still not even one trace of physical evidence. It's really bolstering the argument that these planes should be tracked in real time.

TAPPER: All right, Rene Marsh, thank you so much.

Bad weather hampered Monday's search and with a long rainy season weather in the search area today, will it look a lot like it did the morning 8501 went down? That's the question. Showers and thunderstorms are expected in the region again.

One of the key countries helping with the search is nearby Australia which of course played a big role in the hunt for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 earlier this year. Kim Beazley is the Australian ambassador to the United States. And he

joins us.

Mr. Ambassador, thanks so much for being here. We appreciate it.

KIM BEAZLEY, AUSTRALIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES: Thanks for having us, Jake.

TAPPER: How is Australia going to be helping in the search? What will you be contributing?

BEAZLEY: Well, we're currently P-3 aircraft. This is our front door. It's our close neighbor, our front door. We're operating the P-3s out of Darwin.

TAPPER: What are P-3 exactly?

BEAZLEY: They're Orion -- they're anti-submarine warfare aircraft which have also surveillance capability.

And they're American-designed. You have got stacks of them yourselves. And Darwin is closer to the South China Seas than it is to Melbourne. That gives you an idea of the proximity of it from Australia. These are waters with which we're enormously familiar.

TAPPER: And I guess one of the questions is, the Indonesian government seems to be suggesting that they think that this plane is at the bottom of the Java Sea.

When your pilots are out there in these aircraft, are they looking only on the ocean surface for wreckage or are they also looking at some of the islands around there just in case?

BEAZLEY: They're looking wherever they fly.

But I suspect, at the moment, they're flying over water. They can fly over land as well. They did that during the phases of the Iraq war, where they're operating surveillance patrols on a land basis. So they have got considerable surveillance capabilities.

But if you're going to find things like black boxes, which I think will -- ultimately what it will boil down to, that's why they're asking for you. That's why they're talking about the Europeans as well, because you have the technologies that, as we found out with MH370, which can hear black boxes.

And you would have to say, you would have to be totally confident that at some point in time over the next week or two, and particularly if and when those are deployed, we're going to find some trace of it. You have to say, in the circumstances, I have been surprised at the fact we haven't yet seen wreckage.

TAPPER: Yes.

As you and I were discussing earlier today, your country has a very close relationship with Indonesia. Your prime minister went to the swearing-in of that country's leader; 155 of the passengers on this flight were Indonesian or are Indonesian. What are you hearing from the Indonesian government? What are they saying to your government?

BEAZLEY: Well, firstly, they have expressed their gratitude to us.

I had a chance to have a conversation with the Indonesian ambassador here over the weekend. He's a really excellent, excellent man. And he expressed what had been expressed to our prime minister, a thanks from the Indonesian government for the work that we're doing in relation to surveillance. We do have a close relationship with Indonesia. It is in many ways our most vital relationship.

TAPPER: Because it's right there.

BEAZLEY: It's there.

And it's 18,000 islands. It's 10 times the Australian population, enormous number of Indonesian students in Australia. Indeed, it appears to be at least one of the folks on board the aircraft was a student at an Australian university. So let's say it's quite -- it's an intermeshed relationship. In tourism terms, it's intermeshed. The airline itself, Australians are familiar with it. The foreign minister herself has said that in recent times she traveled on an AirAsia aircraft.

TAPPER: She does travel on AirAsia, because, as I'm sure you know, the E.U. has banned all but five of Indonesia's airlines from European airspace, not including AirAsia.

So, I'm just wondering if there's concern that the demand for air travel in Indonesia has exceeded the capability, AirAsia excepted, perhaps from this?

BEAZLEY: Look, Indonesia is a wealthy country.

And it's going to become a lot wealthier. Last year, their GDP surpassed Australia. I remember when I was defense minister back in '87, the Australian GDP was greater than all the Asian states combined. And now we find, what, that's 25, 30 years old.

Indonesia's own GDP, one of the Asian states, has passed Australia's. Their economic growth is rapid, with it the demand for the sorts of services that tourism opportunities provide. The air links now between the islands is transforming the internals of Indonesia.

TAPPER: But is the government and the regulation, is it catching up or is that keeping up with the demand?

BEAZLEY: Well, I have no reason to think that it's not.

TAPPER: OK.

BEAZLEY: The Indonesians are a serious people. And they operate a serious government. It's a democratic government now.

TAPPER: Right. BEAZLEY: So it's a government that's constantly being tested.

If you're making a mess of your administration, there are a lot of people in parliament who will eat you alive. So there's a -- there's a pretty...

TAPPER: This isn't...

(CROSSTALK)

BEAZLEY: I would say they have some strength.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: You're a diplomat so you can't say it, but I'll say it. This isn't Malaysia. This is a more advanced. More --

BEAZLEY: No, no, no, Malaysia's advanced.

TAPPER: That's why I was going to say it, not you.

BEAZLEY: This is something which I hope very much the Americans come to think of things like the transpacific partnership they comprehend. We're now in Southeast Asia dealing with totally serious operation in those countries. Great strengths, educationally, great strengths industrially.

And so, I have total confidence the Indonesians could handle this properly once the wreckage is sighted.

TAPPER: All right. Ambassador Kim Beazley, as always, great to see you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

BEAZLEY: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: We know that areas of Flight 8501 was in the path of bad weather, before it disappeared. We know a pilot asked air traffic control to change course. But what happened after that? Did the plane get hit by lightning? Did the plane maybe malfunction?

The scenarios that the investigators and the experts are considering, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

More now on our world lead and that grueling search for a passenger airplane that disappeared on its way from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people on board, 18 of them children, including one infant. An expansive search effort has yet to uncover so much as a speck of debris. So for now, investigators are left piecing together clues based on the plane's last transmission.

CNN's Tom Foreman joins us now from the magic wall to show us how they're sorting out what may have gone wrong -- Tom. TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Jake, one of the things

they have to look at here and people talk about it all the time, is weather. And they have to talk about weather because weather is so often a factor.

Look at the flight path of this plane as it took off and flew less than an hour and look at the weather system it was flying through as it went missing there -- tremendous, horrible storms under way. Why could that make such a difference? Let's blow all of this up and look at a little bit closer so you can see it better.

If you think about this plane flying through a storm system, a big storm system out here, one of the first things many people ask about is lightning. Could lightning have brought this plane down? There is plenty of lightning going on in the area. Is that capable of bringing down a plane like this? It may be, but it's highly unlikely.

And here's why. A modern plane like this is meant to be hit by lightning because they know it's going to happen. The skin of the plane is made to conduct that lightning along it and then expel it off the wingtips and off the tail. Even if it penetrates and ruins some system on board the plane, the chance of that being enough to bring the plane down, not very much. It's one of the things the investigators can think about here.

What about the idea of this storm just simply blowing up all around this plane bigger and more robust than anybody imagined and creating tremendous turbulence up there? Could this actually tear a plane like this apart in-flight? Again, not likely. These planes are made to take tremendous stresses.

There could be the problem of incorrect maintenance at some point. So maybe you have a flab or control on the plane that does get torn off and under these extreme circumstances takes the plane down. But, again, not very likely.

That's why there's so much focus on the question of whether or not the plane simply stalled. Did it run into such severe changes in atmospheric pressure that at one moment it was surging forward, the next part it was being yanked back and it suffered a separation from the air flow. What does that mean? That means when a plane is flying through the air, it is the flow of the air over the wings, over the tail, over the body that gives it lift and lets it overcome its own weight and makes it fly.

If there is enough turbulence, enough of a shake-up in that, or if you lose so much speed that the plane basically is not pushing forward fast enough to maintain that air flow, then the air flow can separate from the body of the plane -- and in that way, one of the better comparisons I can come up with is if you're driving down a wet road and your car separates from the road, your tires are no longer grabbing on, you really don't have any control and it's very hard to get that control back.

The same thing can happen to pa plane like this. And if an experienced pilot is not at the helm who does a very good job and even an experienced pilot may have trouble, that plane may have a hard time getting that control back. And in that circumstance, Jake, a plane like this could go from 32,000 feet to in the water in maybe 45 seconds or less -- Jake.

TAPPER: Horrifying thought. Tom Foreman, thank you so much. If weather is to blame for the flight's disappearance, well, that raises other questions, such as -- why, according to "The Wall Street Journal," nearly a dozen other planes managed to fly through that same region at roughly the same time without incident?

I'm joined now by CNN aviation analyst Les Abend, a former pilot, and aviation Jeff Wise.

Les, let me start with you. As far as we know, the missing AirAsia flight was the only one in that area to request a new flight path on Sunday morning. Could this flight have encountered a dangerous weather event in that area that somehow the other flights in the area avoided?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Yes, absolutely, Jake.

This is -- a thunderstorm environment that's dynamic. It's constantly evolving. Thunderstorms are being created or being built or they're dissipating. In this particular case, more than likely with the mass of weather that was shown by Tom Foreman just recently. It's obvious this was a building system. So, it could have been very, very different than other aircraft had experienced.

I mean, it's very -- it's analogous to driving down, let's say, the Westside Highway and you encounter a pothole, where you know it's in a particular lane. But imagine if that Westside Highway moved constantly in three dimensions.

TAPPER: Jeff, this question might seem naive. But I think there are probably a lot of people watching who wonder, if the weather was so bad, should the plane have been allowed to take off in the first place?

JEFF WISE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, if you didn't take off every time there was a thunderstorm in the vicinity, you wouldn't get anywhere, not only in Indonesia but anywhere really. But in Indonesia, we've heard there was terrible weather all month long. And these kind of thunderstorms are cooking up all the time. They're very normal.

Anyone who's lived through a summer in the United States, afternoons come along, the heat warms the water, the lakes and then the grass fields, the warm, humid air rises, it forms thunderstorms. It's a natural part of nature. And normally, you would try to go around them. You don't want to go through the core, especially of a massive thunderstorm where you can get downdrafts up to 100 miles an hour and so forth.

So, yes, they can be dangerous but they can be avoided. That's why most planes of this kind would carry a weather radar in the nose, but even if there isn't ground-based radar in the vicinity, the plane should be able to detect either visually or through radar, where the trouble is and stay away from it. It's something you definitely want to be able to do, and it's something these guys should really have had quite of a bit of experience doing, because they had tens of thousands of hours of experience.

These are like short-haul bus operators. They go back-and-forth, back-and-forth all day long.

TAPPER: Les, the pilot presumably was trying to avoid the weather system when he requested to fly to higher altitude. He was denied because there were so many other planes in the region. As a former pilot, walk us through what options the pilot would then have before him if he's not allowed to go up.

ABEND: Good question. I'm actually still flying so I still experience this on a regular basis.

TAPPER: OK.

ABEND: But, really, the best course of action in any case is always to deviate laterally, you go left or right of course. If he was denied that, then he could have expressed an urgency situation and said, I'm unable to fly at this particular altitude.

It disturbs me at this point that there is that possibility, and we don't have any verifiable evidence at this point through the accident investigation team, that they actually disregarded the clearance to maintain their altitude and climbed on their own. If that climb on their own actually occurred, that indicates a sense of urgency because it's pretty verboten of a pilot to go against air traffic control.

TAPPER: All right. Les Abend, Jeff Wise, thank you both so much.

This is now the third tragedy this year for a Malaysia-based flight. What is behind each of these incidents? Is there a bigger problem afoot?

And commanding up, when the past comes back to haunt you, the third ranking Republican in the House admits he spoke to a gathering of white nationalists, white supremacists. That's ahead on THE LEAD.

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