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@THISHOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA

Bodies, Debris Found in Plane Search; Pilot's Wife Speaks Out; Remembering Those Lost in Air Crashes

Aired December 30, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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


MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, I'm Michaela Pereira. John Berman is off.

We begin with this. Bodies have been located along with debris floating in the Java Sea. The worst has been confirmed. AirAsia says it has been told by Indonesia's search-and-rescue agency that the debris is, indeed, from that missing flight, 8501.

Search planes located the wreckage floating about six miles from the plane's last-known location. The Pentagon says the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Sampson has arrived in the search area and is aiding in the search effort. Another, the USS Fort Worth, is preparing to deploy from nearby Singapore.

That jetliner carrying 162 souls vanished early Sunday during stormy, stormy weather. It was flying from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

Distraught family members have gathered now at that airport in Surabaya where the flight originated. That's where we find our David Molko.

David, thanks so much for joining me. I can't imagine, and I know you're experiencing it alongside them, the grief at that airport, the families learning of that news today.

Talk to us about the latest in the recovery effort. What do we know?

DAVID MOLKO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Michaela. It's just 11:00 in the evening here in Surabaya and Indonesia tonight, Surabaya a city in mourning, Indonesia a nation in mourning, confirming the worst, that in fact the plane has crashed, has gone down, and that search-and- recovery operation is under way.

What's also different tonight from the past two nights is that operation is continuing around the clock. You have ships in the search zone. We imagine that there are planes that potentially are on the way.

The search is not suspended by any means, the President Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi here, was here in Surabaya at the crisis center, speaking to families a few hours ago, and he said this is an all-out effort, our number-one priority is to bring back as many human remains as possible, to search and to recover anything and everything that's possible.

So right now we know from the head of Indonesia's search-and-rescue agency that at least three bodies have been recovered. Conditions are pretty challenging out there. This is relatively shallow water, about 100 miles off the coast of Borneo, we understand, in the Java Sea.

But the conditions are choppy. It's cloudy, we're getting reports of fog, and then there are waves up to ten feet. Earlier we heard from an Indonesian naval official who said, "We spotted two bodies but we were only able to recover one."

This is a grim task, 162 men, women, children on board that AirAsia flight, and there's a lot of hard work in the hours ahead. Michaela?

PEREIRA: And many people from the very same families, you were telling us yesterday about the flight manifest showing surnames that were similar. We know this is going to mean devastation to so, so many families.

You've been in that crisis center that they've set up, or maybe you have. I presume you have.

Are you getting a sense that some of the people there, some of the family members are still holding out hope there could be survivors found?

MOLKO: Michaela, there's hope, but I think the hope is fading. I talked to two families in particular tonight. The first one is a couple who had four family members on that plane, including two grandchildren. They're from a town about three hours outside of Surabaya. And they said, you know, there's a small chance, a five percent chance that somebody may have survived, and we're holding out hope just so we can have at least one member of our family back. And so we can find out what happened.

I also talked to another gentleman, his name is Rudy Theodoros (ph), and he also, again, had four family members on the plane. They were traveling to Singapore on holiday to celebrate the new year, and what he said was fairly different. He said he's confident that the best they're going get at this point is the remains of their family members coming back to them.

Amidst that grief, amidst the heartache, though, some strength. He said, "I'm the leader of my family. My wife, I have to be strong for my wife and other family members here, and I'm seeing myself as sort of the figure that has to lead and be strong. And I just hope for the best and hope that we are able to have at least the remains of our families back here with us."

PEREIRA: We certainly admire his strength.

David Molko, we all think about the fact that most of us traveled at some point during these holidays or will and the idea that we could lose our families like that in the blink of an eye is a sobering thought, indeed. Our thoughts and prayers go to those families. David, thank you. AirAsia's CEO Tony Fernandes has sent his condolences to the families via Twitter. His statement reads, in part, "My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ8501. On behalf of AirAsia, my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am."

He has met with many members of the family there is and is present, we know, in Indonesia making sure they feel the sentiments of the airline.

We want to talk now about the other search, the search for answers into why that Airbus 320 ended up in the water.

Our aviation correspondent Richard Quest has been very, very busy, and he's here with me. Richard, we know of course the secret, the mystery, lies within those black boxes. We have -- you brought us up to speed on MH-370, sadly, on the importance of those flight-data recorders.

Talk to us about that. Remind us how those boxes are designed to inform us what happened aboard the flight.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: OK. What those black boxes -- and there were two of them, remember? There's the cockpit voice recorder/ That will be recording everything that is said in the cockpit, including all the surrounding noises over a two-hour period.

PEREIRA: Built to withstand any sort of impact.

QUEST: Absolutely. Absolutely. Certainly with the sort of impact we're talking about here. Even in the shallow waters, you haven't got the pressure of depth that we may have in 370.

So the cockpit voice recorder will tell us what the pilots were dealing with and how they dealt with it, but the data recorder will tell us in a much greater detail every single thing you wanted to know, from how the aircraft was performing, the engines, the conditions --

PEREIRA: All the systems.

QUEST: -- the inputs.

So, for example, if you as the captain made a move, did something with the controls, it would tell us it was your side that did it. If I did it, it would tell it was my side that did it.

PEREIRA: And also if the plane reacted --

QUEST: It would tell us -- let's say, for example, there was a sudden updraft or there was a sudden -- the weather was having -- you would know from the meteorological data what was happening, and then you literally you plot it onto a timeline.

So what they do is they put the voice recorder. Then they put all the inputs. Then they put the weather/ And they build up a real-time picture -- PEREIRA: A data picture of it.

QUEST: -- of exactly what was happening in the cockpit, and they can tell you to the nth detail, right the way down to the power of the engines, and what chimes and what noises and what alarms were going off.

PEREIRA: And what's different here from MH-370 -- we can't help but make comparisons -- we watched how time, the time limit, the battery life on those data recorders slipped away from us.

Time is on our side here, correct?

QUEST: First of all, they know where the wreckage is.

PEREIRA: Yep.

QUEST: And if this has transpired as many believe, it's a tightly controlled, tight-knit, small debris field, you go down there, and they may not need the pingers. They may be able to literally work their way to it because they know whereabouts it should be.

PEREIRA: And then the key is you get control of the boxes and what happens? Custody and control?

QUEST: Custody and control. You then send the boxes to an investigative authority that has the experience of decoding it.

PEREIRA: You can't just crack them open and get the data out.

QUEST: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. There's a big warning sign on the box saying, "Do not hope, do not touch." They may have to put them into water because they've been in water. They have to be a little bit careful, depends on the condition of the boxes, having been in sea water for several days or weeks.

And then they decode it. I would imagine Singapore has the ability. If not, Australia certainly does, the U.K., France, the U.S.. It will go somewhere and it will be decoded?

PEREIRA: And several of those nations have lent their efforts to the search-and-recovery, so we know that they'll be landing in their hands.

Can we get you to stick around?

QUEST: Of course.

PEREIRA: We have more questions that we want to get to you with in just a moment.

Ahead, we're going to look at the clues and try to read them. What our next guest sees signs that suggest some passengers could have survived? We'll ask him about that.

Also, in other news back here stateside, he is the number-three Republican in the house. A few years back he spoke to a white supremacist group. What the heck is he saying about that now? We'll discuss.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK).

PEREIRA: Welcome back.

We've just received a statement that the wife of the pilot of the airline, AirAsia Flight 8501, has made to one of the local TV stations in Surabaya. I'm going to read it to you. This is the transcript in English.

Quote, "I'd like to know where my husband is. I wish my husband was found immediately. I hope, as his wife, he will be back and well and alive. The children still need a father. I still also need guidance from a husband. He is a good husband in my eyes and he is a faithful husband, a great husband. I can't name all his qualities. He is a great husband for me."

Again, that is the wife of pilot Irianto. He had retired from the air force to become a commercial pilot. He had over 20,000 hours of flight time, so we know this was an experienced pilot. Among many questions is what exactly happened within that cockpit.

So many questions to be answered. Debris has been located. That debris includes an emergency exit door. We also know bodies have reportedly been seen, and three of them have been recovered in the Java Sea. A U.S. ship is helping in the recovery of AirAsia Flight 8501 and the search for the 162 people who were aboard.

The answers to what exactly went wrong, well, as we mentioned with Richard Quest a moment ago, they're locked away in that plane's black box. So far no word that they have been located.

Let's bring back Richard Quest. Also our aviation analyst and former inspector-general of the Department of Transportation Mary Schiavo is here, along with our safety analyst and author of "Why Planes Crash," David Soucie.

Richard, I think I'll start with you. Obviously in terms of where the debris was located, there was a much larger field, some 13 zones that they were searching, an area the size of Georgia.

Their narrowed it down when they were able to spot this debris. How does that help them paint backwards to what happened?

QUEST: Don't confuse the fact they said this is the search zone from where they were actually searching.

PEREIRA: OK. Make that clear to us.

QUEST: Well, they say we're going to extend the zone. That's the logical thing you do when you can't find anything immediately. You widen it out.

But it doesn't mean you've suddenly shifted everything to the furthest extremity of the zone. Say with MH-370, if you look at the zone, it's huge. It doesn't mean they're combing at the whole lot of it. They go to where the most likely place is.

And as David Soucie will tell us, you start with where the last known place of the aircraft.

PEREIRA: So now that this is where the debris was recovered, the smaller yellow box we just saw in our screen. They can start, as you said, not just from the black box because it's not found but from the debris and the knowledge of the currents and what else they find on the ground they can start to paint a picture of what happened.

QUEST: Well, up to a point.

PEREIRA: Up to a point.

QUEST: Up to a point.

The debris will tell them how the aircraft came apart. So, for example, a bomb blast, which isn't in this case, it would have residue. It would show strains. Certain parts of the metal may have twisted in certain areas. The impact, the dents, all that would be shown on the actual metal.

PEREIRA: Right. We saw these images and we all so keenly looked at them, these were the first signs of debris, and we know that there was an area that -- there was a lot of debris. It's a big shifting area. But you saw something that made you say, wait, wait, wait, there could be a survivor. Which I think we're so reluctant to even go there, David. What made you think that?

DAVID SOUCIE, FORMER FAA SAFETY INSPECTOR: And I am, as well. It was kind of an initial reaction and certainly what made me think about that was the fact that there was the door and right below the door is mounted the slide, which is an exit slide, so whether or not it deployed or whether or not it came apart during the breakup, that's still in question.

PEREIRA: They don't deploy unless they're deployed on their own?

SOUCIE: Well, typically that's right, but if you look at this slide it has not been inflated, so therefore it likely was not inflated for an escape purpose, it came out as the door came apart. So it's too early to say that there were survivors or to say that there is or isn't. It's just a matter of fact that just observation-wise, it looks to me as though it's a slide. There's also an exit door. To put those together as something that was done after the aircraft hit the water is premature.

PEREIRA: Mary -- and this is really grim and I want to tread carefully here because obviously it's so horrific what has happened here -- but we know that the state of the bodies, investigators will be able to understand information when they recover those remains.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: That's right. I mean, in this kind of an accident -- and I've worked other over water or ending up in water accidents - and you know, if there's not -- as Richard mentioned -- if there's not a case of explosive residue, etc., then you can tell in terms of how the bodies entered the water, what caused the blunt force trauma, which is how they always describe it. Just really how extensive the plane disintegration was. And you can see that on the bodies. Here I think the preliminary reports is while they had been in the water for some time, that the ones that they had found so far were intact. You can't read much into that, and I don't read anything into the slides by the way and the life vest, because in almost every water accident that I've worked on, those things were floating and people did not survive the impact. It's just they come out of the plane when the plane breaks apart and lots of things float and usually you see luggage, life vests, life rafts, shoes float. And it's pretty typical.

PEREIRA: Richard, does it surprise you that more debris hasn't been found or are the currents there so strong that it wouldn't necessarily be grouped together?

QUEST: Both. I mean, there will be more. This is -- this is --

PEREIRA: It's early days.

QUEST: This is hour two, three, four, five, six of finding. But it spreads out. You know, the plane hits the water with a ferocity. It breaks up and large parts of it, like the engines, for example, heavy parts, will sink. If the engine -- it's very unlikely to have stayed on the wing -- but if they did stay on the wing, and the wing disintegrated, that will go down with it. And the rest of it, Michaela, it breaks up into little pieces, the ferocity is so great. So yes, you will have -- think of 447. You have one or two major pieces, you have to tail, you have one or two pieces, the rest of it literally goes into a million and plus little pieces. Some will float and spread out, the majority will sink.

PEREIRA: And we should remind you, 12 hours ahead of Eastern standard time so it's about 11:18 at night. We'll have to get a sense of, once daylight comes, what kind of efforts continue. Our thanks to Richard Quest, David Soucie, Mary Schiavo, as always, the three of you, we appreciate it.

A man about to be married, a teacher, families heading out on vacation. Ahead, we're going to take a look at just who was aboard AirAsia Flight 8501.

And if you would like to help some of those that were affected by this crash, please visit our website, CNN.com/impact. You can find all the resources you need there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: I want you to consider this: A man who was about to be married, missionaries, a biology teacher, an 11-month-old baby, just some of the 162 passengers aboard the AirAsia flight. Now their families are left having to deal with the grim reality of life without them. Search and rescue turning now into a recovery operation. Our Rosa Flores joins us. We felt it was really important to not just

let these people be statistics, but put some faces and names to the identities of these people. You're starting to hear from some of the families about these victims.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are, and as you might imagine, Michaela, it's very difficult for these families to even talk to the media. Imagine having a microphone in front of your face while you're trying to grieve your loved one. But one woman did and it's overwhelming with emotion. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But my brother never flew with AirAsia so I kept calm. Then someone told me that they saw his name on TV. Then I saw it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: So as you might imagine, very tough for that woman and for many others who are there waiting, waiting to hear the best about their loved one. I also talked to the principal of one of the schools in that area and she tells me she knows five people on board that flight, three of them her students and also her parents. Here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's a very cheerful girl and always having fun and joking with her friends. We are really so shocked with this news. And we are praying (INAUDIBLE) and then we are waiting for good news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Bless her heart.

FLORES: She tells me that there is just so much emotion right now that they're feeling because --

PEREIRA: And one nation bearing the brunt. Over 150 of them are Indonesian. You know what I always think in these scenarios, are the people that missed their flight. Their alarm clock didn't go off or they didn't get a cab to the airport in time. There were likely several of those kind of stories, as well.

FLORES: Yes, definitely so. We're learning about a man, his wife and their child. They lost their flight. And hear this, there's a family of ten who lost the flight. So here's what happened. So the departure time changed and they didn't get the email. They didn't get the notice. And initially, they were upset like you and I would be when we lose our flight. And now, of course, they're counting their blessings.

PEREIRA: But then also having to deal with survivor's guilt, too.

FLORES: Absolutely. Absolutely. Some of them say, and I'm going to quote here, "The Lord is good to me." Others saying, you know, "Thank you, Lord Jesus." Just so many emotions because they do sometimes feel a little guilty.

PEREIRA: And an area that has already dealt with two air disasters, one the downing over Ukraine, and the other one that missing MH370, still no answers about where that flight went. What a horrific time and a nation in mourning. Thank you so much for that, Rosa. It's important to know who these people are.

This crash, certainly, is bringing back pain for the families of the flight I just mentioned, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which still has not been found something ten months after the fact. Our Will Ripley spoke to a man that we got to know very well earlier this year, Steve Wang, whose mother was aboard MH370.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORESPONDENT: Anguish becomes anger. For the families of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, days of waiting turned to weeks and now almost ten months. For them, the news from Indonesia brought everything back.

STEVE WANG, MOTHER ON BOARD FLIGHT 370: The fear about losing someone. The pain and the desperation.

RIPLEY: Steve Wang feels for the families of AirAsia Flight 8501. He knows what it's like to sit at the airport and wait for a plane that never comes. To hope against all odds the person you love may still be alive.

Even after ten months, you're still hoping for a miracle?

WANG: Yes. Though it is painful, but I don't want to give up.

RIPLEY: Wang's mother was only 57. He hasn't spoken her name since March when MH370 disappeared.

WANG: No, I never said it.

RIPLEY: You've never said your mother's name out loud?

WANG: Yes.

RIPLEY: He still listens to the voicemail she left him just before boarding the plane.

WANG: She wanted me to pick her up from the airport and she said to bring her coat. It's hard to believe that a man my age will cry suddenly.

RIPLEY: So you just turned 26 and your mom wasn't there for your birthday for the first time?

WANG: Yeah. RIPLEY: Of the 239 people on MH370, 154 were Chinese. Hundreds of

relatives spent weeks at Beijing's Lido hotel. In the grand ballroom, walls became giant message boards full of prayers for their parents, for their children to come home. Today, it's all gone.

WANG: Nobody talks about it. What will they do? Will they keep on searching for the plane or just give up? I don't know.

RIPLEY: Wang prays for the families of Flight 8501.

WANG: I just want them to be strong. Just -- you are not alone.

RIPLEY: He also prays every day for his mother, one of 239 souls on MH370 still missing.

Will Ripley, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: It has been, meanwhile, 18 years since Heidi Snow lost her fiance in the TWA Flight 800 crash. You might recall that that flight exploded after takeoff from JFK Airport. Since then, this strong, young, passionate woman founded a support group for the families of plane crash victims. I had the opportunity to speak with her earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEIDI SNOW, LOST FIANCE IN TWA FLIGHT 800: Every time these incidents occur, we are walking with them, we remember, we're grieving with them, and I remember all too well being at the family assistance center and this is the point where they're starting to ask for DNA samples and asking for photos of their loved ones and some people are still in a state of disbelief and some people are starting to accept that there's -- their loved one is gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: We all process grief and shock so differently. I also had the opportunity to speak with Sara Bajc. She's familiar to you. She had a partner who was on board that still missing Malaysian Flight 370.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARA BAJC, PARTNER WAS ABOARD MH370 : My heart is just breaking for all of those families right now. But on the other hand, I'm almost a little jealous in a way because, you know, at least they have this ability to put some closure to it and the authorities have acted promptly and have kept everybody informed and it's such a different experience that I've seen play out over the last couple of days compared to what we've had to go through, the families from 370. You know, we're still in limbo.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: And in limbo they remain.

Ahead @THISHOUR, luggage, a life raft, a plane door floating where Flight 8501 likely crashed. Ships, planes, divers searching the area but they're facing a whole lot of challenges in finding the plane. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)